For the Brits: When will BREXIT referendum happen ? [Archive] - HungAngels

Stavros

02-22-2016, 08:14 PM

So Boris will be the face of Vote Leave? (his hair reminds me of Trump's). Odd choice for him given the likely flight of international banking business from the City. Guess it's predictable he'd be the opposition to whichever side the PM took.
Its like that in the States.... If Obama favors A, some politicians Favor B automatically, regardless of the merits. Facts and logic are totally irrelevant.

The excessive publicity given to Boris Johnson has as much to do with internal Conservative Party politics as it does with the EU Referendum. This is because the Party is split with most of the rank and file being opposed to the UK's membership of the EU while the Parliamentary Party, though deeply split as well, is mostly in favour of staying in. Because they believe David Cameron has 'lost' the party, the activists want a 'brand name' to step forward to lead the Exit campaign, but this is also because the other leading Conservatives are either barely known -Priti Patel? John Whittingdale?- or are losers like Ian Duncan Smith who led the Conservative Party after the 2003 election before resigning after losing a vote of No Confidence in his own party. The Exit campaign already suffers from the division caused by the existence of those groups campaigning to leave the UK -Vote Leave, Leave.eu who seem to have merged with Grassroots Out! and the smaller Better Off Out. There is a guide to the latest issues and the players in this BBC link -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887

Boris Johnson reflects the peculiar situation in which he is probably better known in London and New York (where he was born) than in parts of the UK, with the exception of Liverpool and that is because of derogatory comments he made about the city which he then had to apologise for. This complicates the overall argument because London is now so different from other parts of the UK that one can understand why people like Johnson are confident of the UK being able to survive and succeed outside the EU -with no real understanding of what might be happening elsewhere in the UK, or the fact that in some parts of the country there are firms trading with the EU who are desperate not to lose their contracts but fearful that they might.

Boris Johnson believes London is the capital of the world, so leaving the EU for him would merely underline the superior position of this city. Or so he thinks. Evan Davis, a BBC economics and business journalist produced a two-part study of London- Mind the Gap: London Versus the Rest- which is now on YouTube and which in Part 1 contains that remark by Johnson. The link is below, and is worth watching. There is also an overview of the programmes contents in the (London) Evening Standard review.

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/evan-davis-the-talent-all-comes-to-london-it-s-extraordinary-how-sucking-london-is-9160008.html

Evan Davis programme on London here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIpakXL6F6I

holzz

02-24-2016, 08:29 AM

london isn' t top jus tbecause of the City. As if the West End, the museums, the fashion industry, and the top hotels rely on the City alone, eh?

rodinuk

02-25-2016, 02:33 AM

The excessive publicity given to Boris Johnson has as much to do with internal Conservative Party politics as it does with the EU Referendum.

It also has much to do with the fact that Cameron pledged to standdown as PM (if he keeps that promise ... track record on promises not so reliable!) at the end of this term so they need a new leader who can win the General Election.

holzz

02-26-2016, 02:58 PM

boris has been in the frame for years. Him becoming an MP was on track, Cameron knows this, and most likely wouldn't be bothered.

There's nobody else who is capable....Osborne, no. May, for me, no.

holzz

02-26-2016, 02:59 PM

and when/if we leave, i hope we won't see less escorts in central london now...that's meant seriously, not facetiously, since it would be more difficult for any french, german, dutch, polish, swedish, or wherever ts to work.

hippifried

02-26-2016, 10:07 PM

martin48

02-27-2016, 01:15 PM

The Brexit campaign will focus on fear - just like Trump is doing. It distorts the facts on immigration and international rules and laws to paint a picture that Britain will be great again - just like Trump. It presents no evidence of how this greatness can be achieved - just like Trump. But that doesn't matter - we must learn that it is "great" to hate, it is "great" to build walls, it is "great" to turn our backs on the poor, it is great" to dismiss any thought of global problems, it is "great" to be an asshole - just like Trump.

sexyasianescorts

03-18-2016, 10:59 AM

Vote to leave Do not give into fear!

Chloe x

flabbybody

03-22-2016, 03:49 PM

Vote to leave Do not give into fear!

Chloe x
I think you got it backwards. That's exactly the thing the leave side wants you to give into.

flabbybody

04-11-2016, 05:22 PM

Looks like you guys aren't going anywhere
Latest odds have REMAIN vote winning by almost a 72% probability.
2/5

Stavros

04-12-2016, 01:50 AM

At this time I would suggest you exercise caution. It is true that the Remain vote held up over the past year, and has yet to be taken over by the Leave, based on a poll of polls, but the latest of these from 4 April shows a narrowing of the gap to within 1 or 2 percentage points. Poll trackers show however, that while the Remain vote has always been ahead, the Don't' Know vote is large enough to change the balance, as indicated in the polls linked to this post.
http://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/should-the-united-kingdom-remain-a-member-of-the-eu-or-leave-the-eu/#
http://whatukthinks.org/eu/opinion-polls/poll-of-polls/

There are two rogue factors which may be crucial on the day: events, and the turn-out. Events may work for or against the case to Remain, but I would suggest that, for example, the complications arising out of the Panama Papers may have undermined public confidence in David Cameron and by extension his support for the Remain cause, as may also be the case with the publication of tax returns confirming a popular view that our leading politicians are living in a different world t most people. Other events, probably related to refugees and migrant workers on the continent, acts of terror, or some unknown event that the EU cannot manage, may also undermine the Remain cause. But the greatest impact may be on voter turn-out, with people feeling unable or unwilling to vote Remain, or believing that Remain is strong enough to win and therefore people may stay at home. Because it is an unusual vote I think turn-put will be higher than in a General Election, but with undecided voters holding the balance of the result I think it is still too close to call.

flabbybody

04-12-2016, 05:18 PM

martin48

04-12-2016, 06:23 PM

The Brexit crowd are playing on what’s wrong with the EU and the fear of immigration but they have no plans on what to do if we do leave. Boris Johnson (the UK’s answer in deep thinking Trump with a few Latin phrases thrown in) has absolutely no idea. Cameron and all the big commercial and banking interests want us to stay. Well, they are not in favour at present – some papers from Central America got published. So the scare is we vote out for all the wrong reasons. Cameron resigns (before he is pushed and goes back to supporting himself from off-shore funds) and Johnson gets to lead. The Labour Party is too busy fighting itself with a leader who cannot only fail to find his tax returns but has no stand on Europe. Scotland declares UDI. Rest of Europe goes into meltdown. Putin increases his dominance. Meanwhile back in the US, Trump tries to expel Muslins – resulting in the biggest recruiting drive for ISIS, demands the Mexicans build a bloody great wall (then who will do your laundry?)

Enjoy the future

martin48

04-12-2016, 06:26 PM

No reason to think that the betting odds are an indication of the outcome. I would put serious money on leaving that way I can may make up some of the big losses on my shares if we do vote to float off to the blue yonder.

If it's "too close to call" why are the odds for Leave still so long?
Ladbrokes isn't budging from their price and seem perfectly content taking on all the Leave wagers. They must not put too much credence in the polling data

Stavros

04-12-2016, 08:17 PM

If it's "too close to call" why are the odds for Leave still so long?
Ladbrokes isn't budging from their price and seem perfectly content taking on all the Leave wagers. They must not put too much credence in the polling data

On the one hand you make a fair point because the bookies are not usually very wrong, but on the other hand if they noted the narrowing of the opinion polls and changed their odds accordingly, this in itself would give the Leave campaign a degree of hope and publicity. Although I think the public will vote in favour of Remain, there are still a worrying number of Don't Know voters, so it all depends on how the government handles events in case a random factor sways opinion.

The campaigns, such as they are, are on both sides the worst managed political campaigns I can recall on such a major issue. Last night, BBC-2's Newsnight programme presented the first of a series of discussions based around a theme, last night's being 'Sovereignty'. The programme was made up of poor thematic presentations which did not define sovereignty for a modern state, wasted time with a visit to the 'Principality of Sealand' in the North Sea (pop. approx 26), added 'contextual' music and film for a snippet about France and de Gaulle in the 1960s, and at one point had a reporter walking a British Bulldog on the Embankment near Parliament, for no reason I can think of. In the studio discussion, Lord Mandelson of Hartlepool and Foy made some important points on the benefits of the UK being in the EU but made them as a rebuttal to Tory Chris Grayling, delivered with Mandelson's typical condescending sneer that for me cancelled out the core of his argument.

martin48

04-13-2016, 02:58 PM

Just one point, to avoid doubt, bookie's odds depend solely on the money placed. Especially true in a two horse race.

Stavros

04-19-2016, 11:48 AM

In their weekly presentation of the major issues last night's BBC-2 Newsnight programme looked at trade, and was better than last week's programme on sovereignty. Advocates of an Exit from the EU argued that in an age of globalization UK companies should be free to trade across the world, not least because in their view the EU is a 'stagnant' low-growth market and there are better opportunities outside it. A problem with trade deals between states is that they not only take years to negotiate, they often do not result in a deal at all. The Remain argue that as we already have trade deals within the EU and a single market that is still being developed, it does not make sense to leave the EU only for companies to then re-negotiate what they already have.

There is another argument here, and one that has been exposed by the Panama Papers, and by the crisis in Brazil over the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. Just as the Panama Papers barely skim the surface of money laundering, tax avoidance, tax evasion and other financial instruments (some of which are legal in the UK), what the crisis in Brazil exposes is the extent of corruption in an economy that is currently not doing well. Indeed, of the Parliamentarians in Brasilia who voted to impeach the President because of allegations of corruption related to the state oil company, Petrobras, many are themselves fighting investigations into their behaviour over bribery, embezzlement and other corruption allegations -here is a stunning profile of the problem:

Of 65 members on the impeachment commission, 37 face charges of corruption or other serious crimes, according to data prepared for the Los Angeles Times by the local organization Transparencia Brasil.

Of the 513 members of the lower house in Congress, 303 face charges or are being investigated for serious crimes. In the Senate, the same goes for 49 of 81 members.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11450222/dilma-rousseff-impeachment-statistic

Elsewhere in the BRICS who were leading the 'emerging economies' ten years ago, few believe Russia is 'open for business' in terms of free trade owing to the interference of the state in business; China is in recession, while it is still not possible to do business in India without handing cash to a 'Babu' -there is probably more grease on the palms of Indian politicians than there is in a mutton curry.

At least in the EU there are regulations and bodies that monitor them. This doesn't make the EU free of corruption, and there is a lack of transparency in a wide range of areas, but the idea that there is a world of free trade waiting to boost the economy of the UK that is otherwise being held back by the EU seems romantic to me, and willfully ignorant of the perils of trading in corrupt states. But what was also shown in last night's programme was that the members of the public invited on to their panel mostly thought that in terms of trade, an Exit from the EU was a gamble the UK should go for. A case of 'be careful what you wish for', and while it was argued that the potential economic decline following an Exit would not be catastrophic, and that decline might only last for ten years while the UK adjusts for the longer term success, for a certain age group -my own- the prospect of spending the last best ten years of my life in poverty is not something I wish for. To take a risk, or not to take a risk? The irony is, that in a way this Referendum is a vote about fear -the fear that by leaving the EU we might lose something we already have, or the fear that we will lose more or what we used to have if we remain.

flabbybody

04-22-2016, 02:50 PM

Does Obama sound a bit condescending by saying he knows what's good for the British people much better than you know yourself? Are you surprised how a Yank president who's steered his own nation away from decades old foreign alliances visits your soil to advise you to do the opposite?
The whole scene is surreal. The crazy thing is that he might just help sway Leave sentiment with his perceived arrogance.
On another note, I wonder what they're serving at lunch with the Queen.

Stavros

04-22-2016, 08:32 PM

Is Obama condescending? No. He offered his views on independence for Scotland during that campaign in 2014, and has offered them on what is, after all, an unusual political event of great long term significance for both the UK and the EU -and thus by extension world trade, at a time when the USA is negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. I would have been surprised if Obama was not asked his opinion, and in doing so he joins a list of foreign leaders who have commented on it, not just from the EU. As to whether it will make a difference, I doubt it, even though Obama according to some polls is more popular in the UK than he is in the USA -I think in general the British have a positive view of him as a man and as a President. Michelle may even get higher ratings than him.

This is set against the predictable hysteria of the Exit campaign, whether it is tired and emotional UKIP leader Nigel Farage claiming Obama is the most 'anti-British' President since the Revolution, a man whose first act as President was to remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office and whose father of course was an anti-British Kenyan radical, etc etc; or Boris Johnson, who renounced his US citizenship to enter UK politics (Johnson was born in Manhattan). He has ranted in the way only Boris can rant, which is what he does most of the time with semi-coherent bluster.

Johnson and others have also claimed the USA would never accept the terms of EU membership that the UK has, with no regard for the history of the USA which began as 13 colonies in rebellion against the Crown, and developed into a union of 50 states each with their own rights to make laws separate from the others states but who agreed to concede their sovereignty to Congress and the Supreme Court in Washington DC. and engage in free trade with the free movement of labour, goods, services and capital. 'Ever closer union', that scourge of anti-EU campaigners, turned out rather well for the USA, notwithstanding the Civil War and the independence movements in Hawaii, probably Texas and, ever the romantics, California.

As for the lunch, Our Gracious, and Most Noble Majesty does not eat rice, pasta or potatoes. She likes soup, then fish -Dover Sole- with green vegetables, and Scottish beef from her Balmoral estate. She also likes chocolate, does not drink much in the way of wine, but is known to like Dubonnet or Gin in the evening. What the Obama's like I am not sure, though I think I read somewhere that Obama if he is going to eat a tasty burger likes Five Guys -not sure if he drinks it with Sprite.

I think that 960 years after the Battle of Hastings, we can take some advice from anyone without getting too upset about it.

flabbybody

04-22-2016, 09:24 PM

When referencing new trade deals Obama said Britain goes to the "back of the queue" in the event of an EU exit. The Leave folks will have a field day with the vindictive tone of that comment.
On the other hand the President's charm and utter magnitude of intelligence have confounded his opponents for years. Both qualities were on full display at the joint press conference. He came clean on removing the Churchill bust from his inner office and I loved the story of his aide almost fainting at the sight of Her Majesty. I thought he and the PM came off really well at the end when they spoke of the passing of Prince.
Thx for the menu update. We don't get that type of intel on the US news.

Stavros

04-23-2016, 12:49 AM

There was a suggestion on the news this evening that Obama had been coached by Cameron's team, the giveaway being the use of the word queue where an American would normally use the word line. Interestingly, in the panel of undecided voters the Newsnight programme has assembled, three were swayed by Obama's argument.
Boris Johnson's response to that was to argue that the UK has not signed a trade deal with the US for the 43 years it has been in the EU and there does seem to be a parallel argument here, as UK firms can trade in the US and vice versa, but not on everything -he said the US will not allow imports of British beef, but why would the US want British beef anyway? Trade deals have become packages that states negotiate which contain a broad range of products and services with reciprocal arrangements, special dispensations and so on, that one-on-one contracts do not contain.
Whether or not we need TTIP and other trade deals I am not sure, as in the past the US would grant 'most favoured nation' status to ease the access for trade between states. The issue now would be whether or not firms inside a trade deal would have a competitive advantage over those going it alone, as Obama implies-if the US thus were to favour firms operating within a trade deal package, individual firms outside the deal would be at a disadvantage, but they would not be failing to get contracts in a free market, and the Exit campaign see the exit from the EU as the beginning of a retreat from globalisation and a return to more market oriented trade on the basis of competition alone.
It seems to me that while the Exit campaign has supporters who also want these organised blocs to be replaced by states and firms going it alone, they are still in a minority unless the UK votes to leave the EU and triggers a re-structuring of the world economy consequent on the the dissolution of the EU as currently formed. With Trump in the White House erecting tariff barriers and trying to repatriate production by US based firms to the US, the prospects for upheaval and uncertainty from this one referendum result are either overblown, or something to be afraid of.

trish

04-27-2016, 05:43 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA

Stavros

04-27-2016, 07:01 PM

The European Convention on Human Rights was drafted in 1950 by the Council of Europe, a body established in 1949 before the earliest form of what is now the EU and which is thus quite separate from it. Although the British played a leading role in drafting the text of the Convention and signed it in 1951, there was a view that the rights of UK citizens were already covered by the existing Bill of Rights (1689) and it was not until 1998 that a Human Rights Act was passed by Parliament.
The current proposal by the Conservative Government to repeal the Act is a separate issue from membership of the EU -the subject of this thread- and relates to various objections that the party has to provisions of the Act which it claims makes it impossible to deport criminals or terrorists if they can prove they have a right to family life. One myth, that a burglar had a human right to Kentucky Fried Chicken has been debunked by the Civil Liberties organisation Liberty in this link:

https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/what-are-human-rights/human-rights-act/human-rights-act-mythbuster

flabbybody

04-27-2016, 07:45 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA
How fucking great is Patrick Stewart !!
funny piece for the Remain side. nothing beats humor to sway opinion.
Thx for posting trish

Stavros

04-28-2016, 01:08 AM

funny piece for the Remain side. nothing beats humor to sway opinion.

To be pedantic, the proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act is not part of the referendum debate on the UK's membership of the EU but a separate policy proposal.

holzz

04-28-2016, 03:14 AM

well here's what, if we repeal the HUman rights act, slavery is coming back!!!

the human rights act is just about shit on our law books for centuries....

flabbybody

04-28-2016, 03:40 AM

To be pedantic, the proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act is not part of the referendum debate on the UK's membership of the EU but a separate policy proposal.
My apology for confusing two separate issues.
The Patrick Stewart YouTube addresses HRA repeal, not the BREXIT referendum

trish

04-28-2016, 03:45 AM

That would be my bad.

Stavros

04-28-2016, 10:30 AM

My apology for confusing two separate issues.
The Patrick Stewart YouTube addresses HRA repeal, not the BREXIT referendum

I was just being pedantic, the real problem is that some EU-specific issues are often conflated or confused with non-EU ones, and the Human Rights Act is one of the most obvious. In this particular case, the real issue in the UK was Theresa May's political choice to support the Remain campaign even though she is believed to think the UK would be better off if it left the EU. She has done so, we are told, to preserve her career and any aspiration she may have to replace Cameron as leader of the Party. She thus plays the 'Human Rights' card to those Tories who want it scrapped, while remaining on Cameron's side as the assumption is that long term careers will be affected by the result of the Referendum -the losers lose, the winners win. Whether or not the Conservative Party is desperate enough to elect this woman as its leader we do not yet know. The quality of leadership in British political parties is at an all-time low as it is, and there is no sign of any improvement in the near future.

flabbybody

05-01-2016, 06:49 PM

930894
Latest state of affairs:
Leave slightly ahead. Immigration number one concern

flabbybody

05-04-2016, 06:10 PM

Laphroaig

05-04-2016, 07:54 PM

No doubt the scenario of chaotic financial markets and a free falling Pound that would accompany BREXIT are very real. The PM seems to be failing in communicating these risks to the public. Or they simply don't care. Are Brits in some kind of Trump-like "make England great again" trance?

Can you spot the deliberate mistake?...:whistle:

fred41

05-06-2016, 02:29 AM

Is it a coincidence that the day Trump becomes the de facto nominee I'm hearing from my Brit friends growing increasing panicky about a Leave victory?

No doubt the scenario of chaotic financial markets and a free falling Pound that would accompany BREXIT are very real. The PM seems to be failing in communicating these risks to the public. Or they simply don't care. Are Brits in some kind of Trump-like "make England great again" trance?

I tried to reassure my friends. We've been through worse. Besides, where can you run for cover? If Sterling denominated assets tank then US markets will follow in lock step.

I think Tony Blair kind of said the same thing today:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tony-blair--the-whole-world-has-a-donald-trump-problem-211738120.html

or more like, It's happening all over - on the right and on the left...both in Europe and the United States.

flabbybody

05-06-2016, 07:42 AM

Can you spot the deliberate mistake?...:whistle:
Mistake for sure but not deliberate. A lot of Americans conflate the terms England and Great Britain.
And what's with Northern Ireland? They're in the UK but not Great Britain.
And the Irish Republic is neither of the two.
All very confusing for us simple Yanks.

Laphroaig

05-06-2016, 08:20 AM

Mistake for sure but not deliberate. A lot of Americans conflate the terms England and Great Britain.
And what's with Northern Ireland? They're in the UK but not Great Britain.
And the Irish Republic is neither of the two.
All very confusing for us simple Yanks.

It's not just you Yanks that get confused. I was living in England at the time the proposal on whether to hold a Scottish independence referendum was being discussed and one English woman asked me "why do so many Scottish people not want to be part of England." My reply, "you've just answered your own question..."

For me, the irony in all of this discussion about staying/leaving the EU is that if Scotland had gained independence (which is what I voted for), there would have been no EU referendum in Scotland. Whether we would have been allowed to remain in (or reapply for) the EU would have been an entirely different issue.

Stavros

05-06-2016, 01:22 PM

Mistake for sure but not deliberate. A lot of Americans conflate the terms England and Great Britain.
And what's with Northern Ireland? They're in the UK but not Great Britain.
And the Irish Republic is neither of the two.
All very confusing for us simple Yanks.

It is the difference between geography and politics that explains the confusion, and just to add to it, Great Britain is the island comprising England, Scotland and Wales, whereas the British Isles comprise the island of Britain, plus 5,000 other islands, including the Isle of Man, the Scilly Isles, the Channel Islands, Lundy Island and all those islands off the coast of Scotland (Orkney, Shetland et al).

Rather like the difference between the USA and the Americas...Where is America? And who is American?

King Dong

05-06-2016, 09:18 PM

Stavros

05-07-2016, 03:53 PM

We need to get out of the EU. However I fear we will do what the Scots did in their referendum last year - vote to stay out of "fear of the unknown" and then instantly regret doing so. I'm certain that if the Scots referendum was rerun now that the majority would vote to leave.

Where the Scots went wrong IMO is that the leave campaign only focussed on "nothing will change" so as to allay fears of the unknown - keeping the NHS, the BBC, the sterling (and the silence was deafening whenever a pro-independence Scottish MP would avoid answering "what's plan B in case you don't get to keep the pound" by blindly insisting "England will let us keep it, don't you worry about that". Can you imagine the US winning the hearts and minds of its people to rise up against Britian if they said "it'll be exactly the same, honest!". America, just like Slovenia, Slovakia, and all the Balkan/Slavic/USSR states did last century, is base their argument on striding out alone and forging their own identity. The pro-independence cmap for Scotland should have done the same - appelaed to forging a new nation under their own rules TV station, currency and thus not the have the elephant in the roo of "what is England won't share the NHS or the pound?"

Anyway, back to Brexit. The EU has already been pretty pissy with us despite us being the main military force and 2nd (I think) largest economic power - who's exit would leave the EU gaping like a woman's fanny after Big Jim Slade's had his way for 8 hours so just imagine what they'd be like when (yes, when, unfortuately) the nation chooses to play safe and stay in the EU? They'll be even toughter, even stricter, less willing to entertain us "little Englanders" ("little Islanders to include the other home nations) and will simply berate and shout is down with "No, UK! You had your chance to leave, you chose to stay, so shut the fuck up, do as you're told and keep sending the cheques!"

Surely there was always a contradiction at the heart of Scotland's independence campaign? On the one hand, independence, on the other hand the long term view that Scotland would be better off in the EU. Scotland was in the position in 2014 of feeling confident about its future, it had more political control over its own affairs than at any time since the Union, had retained its own legal and education systems so was not in the position of being, as it were a vassal state of the English or an oppressed colony. And the oil price had not fallen below the level that would have undermined an independent Scotland's fiscal programme (although in the long term the price of a barrel may rise again). On balance, I think the Scots could not see the benefits of 'going it alone' when in reality they were never going to 'go it alone' anyway.
A similar dilemma presents itself with the Brexit argument -that the UK will leave the EU on Friday, and open negotiations on re-entering the single market on Monday, so why leave at all? I agree that the real dilemma for the UK is the long term enlargement issue and the way in which the EU is administered and governed, but the UK can only prevent Turkey from becoming an EU member if it uses its veto when doing so as an EU member state, as is true of Albania, Serbia or any other candidate state. There may be good reasons for leaving the EU, and good reasons to stay in, how one balances out those hopes and fears is down to personal prejudice, research, fear of change, and so on. I think the vote will be close, but I think the Remain camp will win, because fear is a potent factor, and there is much to be afraid of given the state of the British economy.

King Dong

05-07-2016, 06:56 PM

A similar dilemma presents itself with the Brexit argument -that the UK will leave the EU on Friday, and open negotiations on re-entering the single market on Monday, so why leave at all?
So many reasons why. Chiefly, controlling our own nation and laws; not having to do what we're told, having laws and policies (and levies) imposed on us, nor leading us by the nose down paths we don't want to go. Right now, the European ourt has absolute control over us - in short, we cannot enforce any laws if they do not agree.

There's a big difference between agreeing trade deals with a body (the EU) and being bound by that body. As it stands we cannot arrange trade deals with the US, China, Australia, for example, and are missing out by being forced into a bloc who's trade deals are "one size fits all" and may suit another nation more than the next. The EU has also failed to set up trade agreements with some natiosn too, damaging our prospect for growth and trade.

And as un-altruistic as it may seem, it's unjust that a teeny, tiny nation that offers so very little to the EU in terms of wealth, military, jobs, and commerce can hold as much sway as major players on the world stage. Britain once ran the world, her genius and achievements shaped the world, from the industrial revolution to radar to engineering to computing and the world wide web. Her military porwess (now outweighed by supernations) was paramount to the world and is still, even now, a key player and one of just 8 nuclear powers. Her black ops train are the elite and train(ed) all the maor nations secret ops. No way should countries lke Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Finland, oland have anywhere near as much say or sway. Can you imagine the USA having to share parity with Cuba, Bolivia, Peru? Where those countries can impose their will on the US and veto changes or insist on changes?

But I think the Remain camp will win, because fear is a potent factor, and there is much to be afraid of given the state of the British economy.
I agree. Sadly.

flabbybody

05-07-2016, 10:27 PM

No king, I could never imagine the US sharing parity of any kind with our North American neighbors. As a matter of fact the Monroe Doctrine pretty much states that foreign entanglements of nations in our hemisphere will be looked upon with harsh scrutiny by the US.
This was the first question asked of Obama at his recent joint press conference with Cameron. His response was a bit dodgy to say the least.
The question itself implies "mind your own business", and "don't advise us to give up sovereignty that your country would never contemplate". I respect that view as well as your admiration for all things British.
But the argument that you'd have to start from scratch on the Monday following a Friday BREXIT is overwhelmingly pragmatic. It just doesn't seem worth it.

fred41

05-07-2016, 10:45 PM

Unless you look at our individual states as European Countries...in that event - we've already done it a long time ago.
I personally don't quite look at it that way though.
I'm not sure which way I'd vote...I would have to be living there and understand a little more about UK economy.
If I didn't think it would hurt the economy much though , I'd probably go with emotion the last minute and vote to leave.

King Dong

05-07-2016, 11:44 PM

I respect that view as well as your admiration for all things British.
In posting, I was just listing all we'd achieved but having said that, I'm sick of the way the country has gone for the past 30 years. Apologising for being British, for all our achievements, for colonisation, for the Empire. OKay, colonisation meant some harsh injustices but it also brought great reform, technology and civilisation. No matter the rights or wrongs, it was an amazing achievement and we were the foremost and advanced nation in the world. Even when the US and USSR started to overtake at the turn of the 20th century, we were still punching way, way, way above our weight.

We shouldn't be hanging our heads in shame, trying to undermine every damn achievement and success we made. There used to to pride n this country - "Buy British" and "British is best" yet now that's seen as racist, xenophobic.....even by other Brits! As much as I have a pathological hatred of American jingoism and shake my head how serious Americans take American, their Americanism, and play the national anthem for the slightest of events I also look on with envy. Because that pride is now lacking over here. Maybe one time it was arrogant - just like the US appears now - but at least it was deserved (just like the US's arrogance is deserved considering all they've done in the past 100 years).

Pride builds a stronger nation, inclusiveness, togetherness, cameraderie - not the marginalised and fractured societies we have now where political correctness means we don't ask them to act o rconsider themselves British, have councils employ multi-lingual people rather than expect them to speak English, putting up notices in variosu languages because it's apparently racist to expect them to speak English when living in England. WTF?!?!?!?!?

Pride builds the economy - encourages investment and trade within the home nation as opposed to blithely looking for the best deal regardless where it comes from (we're now suffering in our once world-famous steel industry because every fucker runs to China and it's ludicroulsy cheap steel - steel which experts confirm is not up to the grade that British steel is and can be dangerous. The mind boggles.

Americans hoist the flag proudly and are louder than usual on 4th July whereas we are embarrased about our flag, think it makes us look neo-Nazi xenophobes and God forbid we celebrate our national day. In fact, we ALL (hoem nations) make a big fuss of Scotland's national day. And Ireland's. And Wales. And Northern Ireland's. We actively encourage Scots, Irish and Welsh to be proud to be Scots, Irish, Welsh but English?? Fuck, no, St George's Day is hardly ever mentioned in the press or elsewhere - it's seen as arrogance and racist, y'see, and - sadly - Brits from other home nations get their backs up when we dare to celebrate ourselves and so the cycle of kowtowing continues. We can't be proud to be English and whilst we are the dominant nation in the UK, everyone else can choose their nationality on their passports and what now but English isn't an option - only British. Fuck that! I'm English and fucking proud. I won't be wiped out and homogenised for political correctness.

I get it, we're not the force we once were but fuck it - be proud! Flex our chest muscles regardless. Don't skulk away, shoulders stooped, apologising and taking shit off inferior nations. When Latvia or even larger countries like Spain and Italy acheieve what we've done, then they can criticise. The Spanish Empire was nothing compared to ours and it took the French and the Spanish together with the Americans to take down the British who even then didn't realise how serious the US uprising was. France? They roll over whenever anyone invades and both England and Germany took it in turns to kill a weekend or two by rampaging and doing whatever the fuck they want. Even now, they hide behind Germany at the EU, like a kid hanging with the tough kid at school, thinking they're cool and tough by association (which is why it cracked me up when Germany turned on them last year and told them in no uncertain terms Germany does what it wants and France will follow). Italy? As was famously said - the Italian tank has 5 gears - 1 forward and 4 in reverse.

Putin got it right. He took over a defunct, broken and penniless Russa but he had pride. Instead of accepting Russia's new place in the world - as we keep being told we have to do - he puffed his chest out and roared. He had a rickety, almost derelict air force but still he got trhem airborne and buzzing other nation's airspace. He wasn;t a threat - it was an empty gesture - and he'd have been in trouble had thye been met with force but that wasn't the point. He was flexing his muscles and telling the world that Russia is a force to be reckoned with. And years later he now has a sizeable, working air force that would cause seriosu trouble to anyone but USA and China. Get it? He rebuilds an extinct air force whilst we cut our armed forces and slash budgets to the point of almost uselessness - makign us even more reliant on the EU, NATO and the pet poodle to the USA.

But the argument that you'd have to start from scratch on the Monday following a Friday BREXIT is overwhelmingly pragmatic. It just doesn't seem worth it.
ALL trade deals need to start anew. Australia had theirs sorted in 8 months so all this talk of decades is just spin. But I put it to you, if you could go back in time to the American revolution, would you have stood up on the platform and said "look guys, even if we win this thing we're gonna have to set up our own currency, politicla structure, government, laws and trade deals........it just doesn't seem worth it?"

Of course you wouldn't and of course it's worth it for the right to be self-determinate; to not have laws imposed on you, to not have to bear mass migration and allow complete aliens total access to your benefit system, your housing, your fucking national health service. The NHS is a wodnerful thing - that was unfairly and inaccuratley bashed in US discourse when Obama wanted to launch an American variant. No bigger a fraud was there than when some US politician said Stephen Hawkings would be dead if he was English and had to rely on the NHS - which prompted Stephen Hawkings to call in and explain he is English and that the only reason hes alive is because of the NHS. This magnificent, free healthcare for all entity, is on its kneed mainly due to to the influx of foreigners (legal and illegal). The legal ones can come in and claim from day one without putting a penny into the system to pay for it (like everyone else has to) and the illegal ones can't be stopped from using it because the deportment process is hamstrung by EU law!! Bloody lawmakers who don't live here, don't pay for the NHS, don't have to suffer the shortages as a result, and = most of all - are unelected! Would the US, or anyone in their right mind, tolerate unelected officials?

Stavros

05-08-2016, 05:13 AM

So many reasons why. Chiefly, controlling our own nation and laws; not having to do what we're told, having laws and policies (and levies) imposed on us, nor leading us by the nose down paths we don't want to go. Right now, the European ourt has absolute control over us - in short, we cannot enforce any laws if they do not agree.

There's a big difference between agreeing trade deals with a body (the EU) and being bound by that body. As it stands we cannot arrange trade deals with the US, China, Australia, for example, and are missing out by being forced into a bloc who's trade deals are "one size fits all" and may suit another nation more than the next. The EU has also failed to set up trade agreements with some natiosn too, damaging our prospect for growth and trade.

And as un-altruistic as it may seem, it's unjust that a teeny, tiny nation that offers so very little to the EU in terms of wealth, military, jobs, and commerce can hold as much sway as major players on the world stage. Britain once ran the world, her genius and achievements shaped the world, from the industrial revolution to radar to engineering to computing and the world wide web. Her military porwess (now outweighed by supernations) was paramount to the world and is still, even now, a key player and one of just 8 nuclear powers. Her black ops train are the elite and train(ed) all the maor nations secret ops. No way should countries lke Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Finland, oland have anywhere near as much say or sway. Can you imagine the USA having to share parity with Cuba, Bolivia, Peru? Where those countries can impose their will on the US and veto changes or insist on changes?

I think you have accepted uncritically some of the arguments made by the Exit campaigns which deserve closer scrutiny. For example, when you state
As it stands we cannot arrange trade deals with the US, China, Australia, for example, and are missing out by being forced into a bloc who's trade deals are "one size fits all" and may suit another nation more than the next. The EU has also failed to set up trade agreements with some natiosn too, damaging our prospect for growth and trade

You appear to ignore the $40bn worth of trade and investment deals that the UK has signed with China in the last year, deals which have been reached in part precisely because the UK is a member of the EU. The largest source of inward investment in the UK originates in the USA and is mostly in services -telecommunications and finances- and is routed through the UK -in the case of financial services, through the City of London- again, precisely because it provides instant access to the EU. Given that the UK has long established trading relations with the Commonwealth, the USA, China, Japan, and even Russia, one wonders which part of the world the UK is losing out on because of its membership of the EU- Brazil?
You can read about the trade deal with China reported in October 2015 here-
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/24/britains-deals-with-china-billions-what-do-they-mean

And if you have time a more exacting analysis of UK trade and the extent to which the EU has benefited British firms is here-
https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2014/pb_britishtrade_16jan14-8285.pdf

The Financial Times last month tried to imagine the UK leaving the UK and argued that if the UK did leave but did not then apply to join the EU Customs Union, it could instead negotiate tariff-free trade even though some EU states have implied they would not be so easy to negotiate, and makes a telling point about what exactly much of the UK's trade with the EU looks like:

One risk to the UK economy is that much of the trade in today’s world of global supply chains is in intermediate goods such as motor parts and electronic components.

British businesses — and foreign businesses based in Britain — would be likely to find themselves at an immediate disadvantage and potentially excluded from those supply chains...
The point is that motor manufacturers spread production across the EU, so the UK leaving the EU would immediately change the terms of trade in supply chains in that industry, and even if over time some way were found to amend this, the question might be why did the UK leave the UK only to then suffer for 2-5-10 years while contracts had to be re-negotiated? Or not negotiated at all. A similar problem arises in the financial and service sectors. These and a few others can be found in the FT article here-
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8b5907c4-0797-11e6-a70d-4e39ac32c284.html#axzz481fkJoDy

From what I have read, so far, on trade and the economy an exit from the EU would be, certainly in the short term, say 10 years, damaging and potentially even worse. It seems to me that the Exit case is premised on an Exit followed thereafter by a re-entry, the crucial difference being the terms of trade, yet on a wide range of trading issues, the UK would not be able to avoid adhering to the rules of the very same single market it claims it wants to leave, so that this whole argument falls apart.

In reality, a fringe group of 'free market liberals' have decided that the globalisation that has trended toward the creation of large trading blocs which sign sweetheart deals with each other that exclude some and include others, is morally wrong because it fixes what ought to be free markets. But the alternative is a world economy made up of individual states whose companies are competing for the same markets where the only issue is that the markets will decide who wins, and who loses, and as is always the case, those arguing in favour of Exit cannot conceive of the UK being a failure if it stands proudly alone. But if losses mount, say, in the USA, a President Trump would then impose tariff barriers and end up practising an economic nationalism that is the antithesis of market forces. Global capitalism has reached a stage of development where the concentration of commodity production through modern technology into fewer economies, makes competition broadly inefficient, as the global production of steel currently shows.

Consider the fact that when the idealists de-nationalised the UK's railways, the utilities such as gas and water, and put them up for sale in a free market, they were snapped up at a bargain price by companies partly or wholly owned by foreign governments. Most of the UK's rail operating companies are owned in part by state-owned companies in Germany, France and the Netherlands. That is the reality of the global economy, just as most of the world's oil and gas is owned by state-owned corporations. Those campaigning for an Exit from the EU refer to the UK as the world's fifth largest economy, but cannot then explain why the UK cannot build a nuclear power station without external financial support from countries such as China and France.
The UK does have a relatively strong economy, but it owes most of this to its membership of the EU.

King Dong

05-08-2016, 12:27 PM

I think you have accepted uncritically some of the arguments made by the Exit campaigns
Nope. I've been listening to both sides for years. My heart is just with the leave campaign. And if nothing else, we shoudl be self-determinate. Any country should be - least of all one with the legacy and impact of Britian (preferably England as I want an end to the Union).

It's not so that trading with the EU means adhering to their rules. I know countries like Norway has to but there are caveats and circumstances that allow for greater latitude. I think - could be wrong - that Switzerland enjoys such freedom. Don't forget, as much as the EU and the in camp like to make a fuss of the fact we are one nation looking to leave a huge bloc that is bigger and richer than the USA, that bloc is terrified of us leaving. Our absence would tear a fatal hole in the EU (not that they will admit it) and, like Turkey did over the migrant issue, we need to punch our weight and pull rank to get what's best for us and you can be assured, the EU would follow.

In practice, the UK would likely seek to negotiate a novel form of Free Trade Agreement, but as Pawel Swidlicki of Open Europe notes, the trade-off is between “speed and scope”. If the UK wants a broad deal, particularly one covering services, including financial services, it could take some time. In the absence of a deal between the UK and the EU, the UK would then be required to follow World Trade Organisation rules on tariffs. he UK would pay tariffs on goods and services it exported into the EU, but since the UK would pay ‘most favoured nation’ rates, that would prohibit either side imposing punitive duties and sparking a trade war. Business for Britain, which campaigns for exit, estimates that at worst, tariffs would cost British exporters just £7.4 billion a year and says the UK would save enough on EU membership fees to be able to compensate exporters for that.

* The EU has so far failed to secure free trade deals with US, China, India.Major economies eg.
* Japan (one of the world’s largest) are not in a trading bloc.
* Norway and Switzerland are not in the EU, yet they export far more per capita to the EU than the UK does; this suggests that EU membership is not a prerequisite for a healthy trading relationship.
* Britain’s best trading relationships are generally not within the EU, but outside, i.e. with countries such as the USA and Switzerland.
* EU directives are subject to a ‘rachet’ effect – i.e. once in place they are highly unlikely to be reformed or repealed.
* Less than 15% of Britain’s GDP represents trade with the EU yet Brussels regulations afflict 100% of our economy (the 5th largest in the world).
* Over 70% of the UK’s GDP is generated within the UK, but still subject to EU law.
* In 2006 it was estimated that EU over-regulation costs 600bn Euros across the EU each year..
* In 2010, Open Europe estimated EU regulation had cost Britain £124 billion since 1998.
* Official Swiss government figures conclude that through their trade agreements with the EU, the Swiss pay the EU under 600 million Swiss Francs a year, but enjoy virtually free access to the EU market. The Swiss have estimated that full EU membership would cost Switzerland net payments of 3.4 billion Swiss francs a year.
* Norway only had to make relatively few changes to its laws to make its products eligible for the EU marketplace. In 2009, the Norwegian Mission to the EU estimated that Norway’s total financial contribution linked to their EEA (European Economic Area) agreement is some 340 mn Euros a years, of which some 110mn Euros are contributions related to the participation in various EU programmes. However, this is a fraction of the gross annual cost that Britain must pay for EU membership which is now £18.4bn, or £51mn a day.

The 5-10 years talk of negotiating trade deals is, as I said, baloney. Australia comopleted theirs with the US in 8 months and no offence to the Oz Monsters, but they're not even in our league. Washington would still need it's oldest, strongest ally and we are, whether they like it or not, the closest they have in terms of outlook, perspective and culture. As for the EU, we are one of the biggest importers so they need us too.

And yes, unlike the Scottish pro-indepedents, the leave camp has explored options of failure and are ot stickign their heads in the sand. Unlike the Scots, they have answers and sound reasons as to why they don't believe failure would take place and that's a BIG difference from Alex Salmond ignoring the question of "what if Britian won't share the Sterling?" The trth is thee's no sound financial reason why the UK woudl fail going it alone. There are infinitely smaller nations in the world that are prospering just fine - without a fraction of the UK's economy, military might and international standing. The argument that Britain would flounder outside of the EU is a shameful misnomer.

King Dong

05-08-2016, 03:06 PM

Plus bear in mind the EU as we know it today is a ery recent construct and a ar cry from what we signed up to in 1973. For thousands of years up until the last couple of decades the UK has prospered on its own so all this talk of collapse is pure nonsense.

King Dong

05-08-2016, 03:32 PM

And from the Andrew Marr show this morning:

While the UK would no longer be bound by EU regulation, legal judgements and free movement rules it would, in reality, still have access to the EU's internal market of 500 million people since free trade across the European continent would not suddenly come to a halt, Mr Gove said.

"If you negotiate a trade agreement with a country with which you currently have tariffs, then you need to negotiate which tariffs will remain and which will be reduced," he said.

"If you don't have tariffs then both sides can agree there is no need to erect them. Germany carmakers are not going to want to have tariffs erected when they sell many more cars to us than we sell to them.

"And I can't imagine a situation if any individual nation of the EU wanted to erect tariffs, that others would let them."

With Germany importing far more goods to the UK than the UK exports to them, he said it was in the interest of their "political establishment" for the current status quo to be maintained.

"It is win-win for them at the moment," he said. "It should be win-win for us and it will be if we vote to leave and we can maintain free trade, stop sending money and also have control of our borders."

"I think it would be very difficult for any German finance minister to say to BMW I am afraid you are going to have to lay off workers because I want to punish the British for being democratic by erecting trade barriers...that won't happen."

Stavros

05-08-2016, 04:48 PM

Rather than quote your previous posts, I would like to respond by making some points that are raised in them.

To take the last point first the claim that For thousands of years up until the last couple of decades the UK has prospered on its own is risible nonsense. The formation of the East India Company in 1600 marks an important moment in the history of British trade, because it took place at the same time that the Royal Navy was beginning to dominate the high seas, at the expense of the Spanish Armada, and is thus fundamental to the growth of Britain's maritime based Empire. Without the Empire, be it the Americas or Africa, India and China or Australasia, there is no wealth, no power, no glory. And just as the British Empire transformed the places I have just mentioned, so they had a tremendous impact on Britain. If you want to take a trivial example, Fish 'n Chips will suffice -potatoes from America, fried fish from the Jews: the national dish is immigrant food. Throw in tea, coffee, sugar, cotton, silk, diamonds, and opium and you can wave goodbye to the idea that Britain ever prospered on its own, and that is before one adds in those crucial moments when foreign armies intervened to save Harry, England and St George.

It is also the case that in the same decade during which most of the Commonwealth countries achieved their independence, the UK in 1960 was a founder member of the European Free Trade Association, along with six other European states (Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland) and it is estimated that foreign trade among its members increased three-fold, even though this was by volume smaller than economic growth in the existing members of the Common Market at that time. Collectives work.

The argument put out by the Exit campaign that the UK will be able to re-negotiate trade deals with the EU as Norway and Switzerland has done misses some important points, the most obvious of which is that Norway and Switzerland have access to the Single Market, but must adhere to its four freedoms and cannot negotiate amendments because neither are EU members.

Norway offers a startling example of how a 'proud, independent' nation has grown in spectacular fashion since the 1970s when the first oil field in the North Sea was discovered -Ekofisk (1969) -by integrating with Europe and the wider world. Norway had a strong fishing industry and a merchant shipping fleet of historic proportions, although it was in trouble in the 1960s. The problem was that Norway had no expertise in the petroleum industry, and lacked the capital to develop it. The only way Norway could enjoy the prosperity based on petroleum it now has, was to invite foreign companies to do what at the time it could not, even if it did impose stipulations that were designed to protect Norway's indigenous industries. Not only was the development of this industry thus due to international co-operation, the man credited with pioneering exploration in the North Sea, and the subsequent development of the industry was a Muslim immigrant from Iraq, Farouk al-Kasim, whose story, of greater significance to Norway than the murderous career of that cretin Anders Breivik, can be found here-
https://next.ft.com/content/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0

In the case of Switzerland a neglected aspect of the UK's relationship with the EU helps illustrate why membership has not only been a major benefit, but why it would also be so damaging -here we are talking about Research and Development (R&D).
The EU has the largest share of science R&D activity in the world -22.2%- followed by China -19.1%- and the USA -17.6%. As a survey of R&D in the EU has argued-
The EU is now a community of scientific talent which can flow between countries without visas or points systems and which can assemble bespoke constellations of cutting-edge labs, industry and small businesses to tackle challenges local and global...
In 2011 the EU created a single common strategic framework in R&D called Horizon 2020 worth $80bn of funding over 7 years (2014-2020). Switzerland had been participating in science framework projects in the EU since the 1990s, but in 2014 a referendum to limit immigration was passed, and as a result Switzerland refused to grant free movement of participants from Croatia, but therefore fell foul of the provisions of Horizon 2020 and was suspended. As a consequence
The Swiss government was forced to replicate at national level a temporary programme to replace immediate access to the ERC programme and subsequently negotiated limited access to H2020, with much reduced access to programmes, exclusion from the new SME Instrument and loss of ability to coordinate collaborative research within H2020. This is reliant on continued freedom of movement. Switzerland also funds Swiss participants in EU collaborative programmes directly at national level, requiring parallel domestic administration and an agreement to accept all funding decisions made in Brussels, effectively losing control of its national science budget.
Were the UK to leave the EU it would want to retain its involvement in EU R&D such as Horizon 2020 and continue to pay for it while having no influence over the budget, and having to replicate all the administrative procedures currently performed by the EU as it would be an outsider, increasing the costs of participation. This might sound obscure, but R&D is crucial to the economic future because of its impact on projects related to health, engineering, chemistry, communications and all those 'new industries' that we expect our children to graduate into over the next 25 years. You can read the report on the importance of R&D here-
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexitvote/2015/12/05/debunking-the-myths-about-british-science-after-an-eu-exit/

I could go on - but the basic argument of the Exit campaign can be summed up thus: we want to have all the benefits of the club without paying the membership fee or abiding by the rules.

The primary point is that the international economy is an inter-dependent economy, even the strongest economies rely on foreign imports, foreign markets, foreign workers, and foreign capital to survive and grow. The concept of sovereignty is little more than a conceited claim that pretends real power exists only inside the state. It does not. The same people who argue for an exit from the EU do not argue for an exit from NATO or the UN, even though the UK cannot defend itself without NATO and cannot even patrol its maritime borders without asking for help, to the extent that last year on 43 occasions the UK's borders were monitored by NATO aircraft from Spain, France, Germany and the USA. And in terms of sovereignty, if Turkey were attacked by Russia and called on fellow-members of NATO to assist, what is the UK going to say -'we are sitting this one out'? What happens if Argentina re-invades the Falkland Islands and fellow NATO member the USA says 'we are sitting this one out'? Isn't this why we join international organisations, for mutual benefit?

And it is because the benefits outweigh the costs, that we are better of in the EU.

flabbybody

05-18-2016, 02:48 AM

Besides all the pro-Trump posts I get on Facebook from friends and family, this is what pops up from one of my former work colleagues. I might need to de-friend934888

Stavros

05-18-2016, 11:57 AM

I have linked below the Financial Times poll tracker with a start date in 2010 updated to yesterday May 17th 2016, which shows on aggregate that the current position suggests a 46% vote to Remain, a 44% vote to Leave. This is in contrast to the What UK Thinks aggregate based on six polls held between the 4th and 15th of May 2016 which produces a 51% Remain and 49% Leave result. Note that the FT tracker also lists the numbers of people polled which ranges from 3,000+ to a poll as low as 800. The Don't Know voters clearly make a difference to the outcome, with the forthcoming poll by the British Election Study reaching the most dramatic conclusion so far.
The BES preview was the lead item on Channel 4 News last night, and shows:
The outcome of the EU referendum vote is on a knife edge with little more than one month to go, according to one of the largest surveys to date.
Among a huge sample of 22,000 voters, Remain has a narrow lead of 43 to 40.5 per cent, according to new data from the British Election Survey.
But the advantage is wiped out among voters who say they are very likely to vote – giving Leave the victory by 45 per cent to 44.5 per cent.
The new data also indicates that ethnic minority voters could hold the balance of power. While white voters are split evenly, all ethnic minority groups are far more likely to back Remain. However, the data also suggests that turnout could be 20 to 25 per cent lower among ethnic minority voters. Voter registration is also lower and with only three weeks to go before registration closes on 7 June, time is running out for new voters to ensure they have their say on 23 June.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-outcome-on-a-knife-edge-according-to-new-data-from-british-election-survey-a7034751.html

The BES findings do return us to the issue of voter registration and voter participation, an issue which appears to be critical in the performance of modern democracies where apathy or an unknown factor has led to low turnouts for local and also general elections. In the case of the EU Referendum, because this is a unique event with a high profile that has long-term ramifications for the UK as a whole, I expect voter turnout in general to be high, but if it is the case that ethnic minorities who on balance are in favour of Remaining in the EU do not/have not registered -the deadline is the 7th June 2016- and do not vote, this would at least narrow the margin. Although I expect Remain to win the vote, a narrow victory will not settle the issue, but for those opposed to the UK's membership of the EU the campaign to leave will continue as if nothing had changed.

The Financial Times poll tracker is here-
https://ig.ft.com/sites/brexit-polling/?ftcamp=traffic/sem/tactical_brexit/uk_google/essence_sem/auddev

The What UK Thinks poll of polls is here-
http://whatukthinks.org/eu/opinion-polls/poll-of-polls/

The British Election Study website (nothing so far on the poll mentioned above) is here-
http://www.britishelectionstudy.com/

flabbybody

05-24-2016, 05:05 PM

Good read about Brussels using some backdoor loophole to manipulate UK pension eligibility for non-citizens. This kind of bullshit gives credence to Leave side.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/318555/All-migrants-to-get-a-British-pension

Stavros

05-24-2016, 07:01 PM

Hmm..The Daily Express? One notes that more than half of the article that makes claims the EU is going to 'seize control of the benefits system' is actually about Turkey's application to join the EU which can only happen if ratified by all 28 member states and Cameron saying, explicitly that this is not going to happen. It must also be the case that if an EU migrant worker from Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands or Romania lives and works in the UK they must be entitled to the same benefits as everyone else, allowing for the new arrangements in the deal Cameron reached with the EU earlier this year which places time-constraints on when migrants can claim benefits. The Express is pumping up an aspect of 'ever closer union' in the Social Union proposals of the EU on the grounds that this removes policy making from London to Brussels, but ignores the reasonable argument put forward by the EU:
One important policy goal of the EU is to ensure that people are not prevented from acquiring adequate pension rights when they move to live and work in another EU country. Social security coordination plays an important role in this regard. The Commission has also proposed legislation to ensure that mobile workers are not prevented from earning and keeping occupational pension rights.
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=752

We are in a single market, the broad assumption must be that people working in it across the EU are entitled to the same range of benefits, of which pensions is surely basic, whether they are British citizens working in France, French citizens working in Britain, or Romanian workers in the Netherlands. My suggestion is that if you want informed articles on the EU, the Daily Express is not the best place to find them.

flabbybody

05-24-2016, 08:02 PM

chupapau

05-24-2016, 09:59 PM

Vote to leave Do not give into fear!

Chloe x

Not being from the UK, I can only ask that you vote leave with all your heart.

Be brave and take the leap :claps

PS : for those who fail to see it, above is sarcastic.

Stavros

05-24-2016, 10:22 PM

The pension article was in a tweet from someone who would quote Donald Duck if it advanced the Exit viewpoint. I had no idea the source was that dubious.
One thing I remember about British newspapers when I lived in London was the daily pic of a random bare breasted woman. This was back in the early nineties so I guess political correctness would have done away with that journalistic tradition.

The Sun's Page 3 lasted from 1970 until last year and is one of those topics where you either 'chill out' or campaign against. Britain's official moron, a chat show host called Jonathan Ross once taunted (ex-) Labour MP Clare Short about it when she said on his show -I think in the 1990s- it should be scrapped. On at least one occasion they printed a photo of a 16 year old which would be illegal in the USA, but is par for the course as far as Rupert Murdoch's is concerned. You can read about it here if you want to -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_3

Kojak

06-02-2016, 07:30 PM

There are two dates, depends what you vote for.

Kojak

06-02-2016, 07:35 PM

Cameron's on Twitter bragging about some "deal" he inked today that will keep England in the EU. He's promising so many wonderful things for you guys it's as if the PM has taken a page from Mr Trump.
It's actually Boris Johnson who has a thing with Donald T

flabbybody

06-03-2016, 08:09 PM

I'll paraphrase what JP Morgan CEO said to his London employees:
'BREXIT will force the bank to reduce head count in our London business units...But don't let my message influence your vote'
Thanks Jamie.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-03/jpmorgan-ceo-dimon-may-have-to-cut-u-k-jobs-in-event-of-brexit

Stavros

06-14-2016, 11:55 AM

The Financial Times poll tracker gives the Leave the EU vote a 2% lead over Stay (47% Leave, 45% Remain) and the odds from the bookies also appear to have narrowed. This closing of the gap causing panic in the Remain camp is not dissimilar to the poll that was released prior to the referendum in Scotland in 2014 which gave independence a narrow lead, so it is not clear how far these polls are reflecting the 'deep' vote or the 'superficial' headline vote. In some polls the result is arrived after eliminating the 'Don't Knows' so I expect this group and the overall turn-out to be crucial.

Meanwhile as The Sun backs an Exit from the UK, we are given the prospect of 'Taking the County Back' from Brussels, only to hand decision making to Rupert Murdoch, a proprietor of newspapers who knowingly broke the law and who is a free market liberal who hates trading blocs and the EU in particular, as is well documented-
Many years ago, journalist Antony Hilton asked Mr Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union.
He replied: "That's easy. When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice."

FT Poll tracker is here-
https://ig.ft.com/sites/brexit-polling/?ftcamp=traffic/sem/tactical_brexit/uk_google/essence_sem/auddev

Latest odds are here-
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/eu-referendum/referendum-on-eu-membership-result

Quote from Murdoch is here-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/eu-referendum-the-sun-urges-readers-to-vote-leave-as-murdoch-applies-pressure-a7080881.html

flabbybody

06-20-2016, 05:04 PM

Why you should vote Remain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQtd9X4UO8k

Stavros

06-20-2016, 07:15 PM

While being amused, I think my first thought was surprise that a boy of that age would be allowed to swear in public, even if it is a song. The Oliver show segment this closes is also on YouTube and quite good, particularly the exposure of the EU regulation mania which in the case of Pillows seems to be fluffed up quite a lot...the Brexit campaign has always been stronger on fantasy than reality.

flabbybody

06-21-2016, 07:21 AM

Yea I was a little shocked seeing a youngster singing such naughty lyrics...shock and awe have always been Oliver's shtick.
But he makes a great point. You can hold Europe in utter contempt and simultaneously support Remain. Haven't the French started every war in history and needed to be bailed out each time?
Making fun of Europe is a great Anglo-American tradition. Not to be confused with BREXIT being a major blunder.

Stavros

06-21-2016, 10:06 AM

A harsh judgement on France, who did not issue an ultimatum to Serbia in 1914, and did not invade Poland in 1939...and while there may be an irony in the border officials of the UK being based in Calais these days, I don't think there is any support for 'returning' either Normandy or Aquitaine to the English crown, even if some workers in London and the south-east commute from Normandy every day, more the benefits of contemporary travel than politics.

The interesting poll reported in today's Telegraph has reversed the situation we were in last week, where Leave edged ahead, this poll puts Remain 7% ahead -53% Remain, 46% Leave. The bookies now have Remain at odds on and Leave slipping away to 11/4 against. There is a lot of debate about the polls and whether or not they are telephone polls, face-to-face, or even asking the right people, as Leave voters are shown to be less likely to change their vote. This suggests the turn-out will be as crucial as the 'Don't Knows' do not usually make up their mind until the last few days before the election. As former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson put it, A week is a long time in politics.

There was always the possibility that an unforeseen event, or a major gaffe by a leading campaigner could flip the vote, much as in the US election an indictment of Mrs Clinton, or more likely, Trump veering away from a prepared script to say what he thinks could damage their image with the voters, as to some extent has already happened with Trump's initial reaction to the murders in Orlando.

The murder of Labour MP Jo Cox may be one factor in the reversal of Leave's fortunes, as her killer comes across as an English Breivik, giving his name in court as 'Death to traitors, freedom for Britain'. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have said they will not challenge Labour when the MP's constituency votes for her replacement -but a neo-Nazi has said he will contest the election on behalf of a party he calls Liberty GB, although he has yet to sign up any supporters to get himself onto the ballot paper. But he does represent that part of the Leave campaign that people don't want to talk about as they are even more extreme than Nigel Farage and the United Kingdom Independence Party.

These apparently tenuous connections may in fact reflect a growing unease with the way that Farage has muscled in on a tepid campaign by leading Conservatives Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Chris Grayling. The earlier emphasis the Conservatives (and some Labour Leave campaigners) made on trade, finances, sovereignty and politics has been taken over in the last 10 days by immigration, but I think this is a toxic issue in British politics and that it loses more votes than it gains. Leave are also divided as Johnson said at the weekend he supported the idea of an amnesty for illegal immigrants which is not what Farage and the nationalists want to hear. I suspect that as in the US, the key issue in the EU Referendum is the economy, jobs and pensions, and the fear that Leaving the EU is too much of a gamble is swinging the vote back to Remain.

However, the evidence we do have is that this is still going to be a closely fought campaign, and that the margin of victory will struggle to get into double figures, but right now on a turn-out of 70-80% I give Remain the edge over Leave.

Two days to go.

flabbybody

06-22-2016, 07:45 AM

Are the pollsters asking anyone in Northern Ireland or Scotland? It must be that the data is all from England. It's the only explanation for why Ladbrokes is making Leave 1-4
I can't ever rember odds and polls being this much out of line with each other.

Stavros

06-22-2016, 01:26 PM

As far as I know the major polling organisations convene panels whom they believe are a fair representation of the electorate in terms of age, location, social class and occupation. Some also use telephone polls but apparently cold callers for various scams have eaten into this mode of polling while some claim the only people on the phone during the day are the retired and the unemployed and that Conservative voters tend to put the phone down rather than answer questions, while panels may include opinionated people or activists with an agenda. The organisations however believe their methods are fair, and explain the 2015 General Election failure due to poor sampling.
There is an overview of polling methods here-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35350361

And as a matter of interest I link an article on the situation in Northern Ireland where the Unionists mostly favour Leave while the Republicans/Nationalists favour Remain, which is odd, because if the UK were to leave a United Ireland could be closer to reality than it is at the moment, or it could be that Sinn Fein and other Republicans are too busy counting the money they get for their 'local communities' in EU grants to waste time worrying about a united Ireland....or maybe they are worried border controls will return...who knows?
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/bill-white/eu-referendum-how-will-northern-ireland-unionists-and-nationalists-vote-on-june-23-34475000.html

Kojak

06-22-2016, 04:02 PM

We will know after tomorrow

Stavros

06-22-2016, 09:58 PM

I am probably going to make a fool of myself, but I predict Remain will win the vote tomorrow by a margin of approx. 7%. I also expect the voter turnout to reach and probably exceed 80% which would make it the largest turnout for a vote in a nationwide election since 1950.
Voter turnout in Scotland before the 2014 referendum on independence was the highest at 84.59% since the General Election of 1951, and on that basis I expect the UK to match that. Similar traits are the beliefs on both side that they have edged each other prior to the vote but with the vote for change losing out to the status quo. If it all goes wrong I guess I will have to find somewhere else to live.
For those interested, this link indicates voter turnout in elections since 1945.

http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

And a reminder of the Scottish poll in 2014-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014

flabbybody

06-23-2016, 11:52 PM

You got your turnout, 83.7%
Exit data showing Remain victory @ 93% certainty. And your point spread of 7 looks spot-on
We should have actual numbers by midnight New York time

flabbybody

06-24-2016, 01:43 AM

Ugh. surprise Leave strength in Newcastle results. Sterling taking a major league dump vs yen and dollar
gonna be a long night

The Piper

06-24-2016, 08:36 AM

:D

Sense at last.

filghy2

06-24-2016, 09:03 AM

All we need is a Trump victory in November and the triumph of the ignorant and easily manipulated will be complete.

Stavros

06-24-2016, 09:59 AM

A few comments on the result:

1) I was wrong, because I thought that the risk factor was strong enough to support the Remain vote, but the margin of victory of 4% is weak, and I did expect the turn-out (72%) to be closer to 80%.

2) The results confirm the haemorrhage of the Labour vote in 2015 is part of a continuing trend. This is a major crisis for the Labour Party, not least because its leader failed to make any impact on the debate, and because Corbyn personally has been opposed to the EU all his political life and only supports/supported the Social Chapter of the Single Market Act. The left is in disarray and I see no short or medium term revival for it in the UK, and I do wonder if Corbyn can survive as leader of the party.

3) Scotland has voted to Remain, and I expect the Scottish National Party to use this fact to consider its 'next step'- either to begin the process for a new referendum on Scottish independence, or to 'wait and see' for the next two years to see how the negotiations on an Exit proceed. Either way, the UK is facing the most serious challenge to its structural integrity since Irish independence, and I don't see how on present evidence the UK can hold together in its present form.

4) The EU Referendum has been a major disaster for David Cameron, who this morning has announced that he will resign earlier than expected as leader of his party, and that the party must choose a new leader -and thus, a new Prime Minister, by October this year (he had already made it known he would not lead the party into the 2020 General Election).

5) The result could present the British government with a dilemma as this result weakens the status of Gibraltar as part of the UK, with only 823 people voting to leave the EU (19,322 voted Remain). The irony of course is that now the only way Gibraltar can remain in the EU is to become part of Spain, however, I expect them to choose being 'British' over becoming part of Spain, and the economic prospects are yet to be determined. A weak pound could make Gibraltar a happy destination for the Spaniards, but weaken the jobs market.

6) The vote is a major victory for two groups: on the one side there is Vladimir Putin and the European fascist movement, the vote being hailed by Marine Le Pen as a 'victory for freedom'. The real question now, probably a longer term one is whether or not the EU can survive in its present form, and I would not be surprised if it changes significantly over the next 10 years, and this plays into the agenda of the second group who see this as part of a reversal of globalization and the beginning of the end of trading blocs and mega-trade deals, as they want a world economy dominated by private companies and entrepreneurs rather than states even though most of the world's capital and resources are owned by states, and most of them dictatorships.

7) The likely scenario is that -market reaction aside- change will take place slowly so that the full impact of an exit from the EU may not be felt for as much as 5 to 10 years, but as the Bank of England will be reviewing its contingency plans I would not be surprised if interest rates rise in the next 7-10 days, a sign of the changes to come.

I don't know what else to say, it is obviously easier to predict the future than it is to make it happen.

Jericho

06-24-2016, 12:59 PM

Most cringe-worthy moment...Nigels 'Independence Day" speech.
Yeah Nige, you hadn't practiced that!

peejaye

06-24-2016, 02:18 PM

trish

06-24-2016, 02:40 PM

I sincerely hope this decision won't be as regretful as it seems now to be. :(

martin48

06-24-2016, 04:07 PM

I sincerely hope this decision won't be as regretful as it seems now to be. :(

No, it is worse! I hated the phrase that lots of people came out with "I'm not racist but ..". Racism was a major element in many people's voting. We now become Little England and the establishment (a nasty part than it had before) takes control.

flabbybody

06-24-2016, 04:12 PM

With Sterling down 10% it should be good for London tourism.
If you work for Barclays or HSBC, not so good.
Beyond that, anyone who says they know is simply guessing.

peejaye

06-24-2016, 04:28 PM

peejaye

06-24-2016, 04:28 PM

With Sterling down 10% it should be good for London tourism.
If you work for Barclays or HSBC, not so good.
Beyond that, anyone who says they know is simply guessing.

It's only fallen by 7% now, already risen by 3%!

Laphroaig

06-24-2016, 04:58 PM

broncofan

06-24-2016, 05:54 PM

I didn't say anything because this is the type of decision that is really tough to evaluate if you do not live in UK and experience firsthand the costs and benefits of EU membership. My sense is that people were well aware of the costs of membership but the benefits of being in the EU are hard to evaluate until later (benefits of status quo can easily be taken for granted). It's not the initial shock that will tell whether this is a good decision, but ten years down the road, when we see what investment activity looks like and if the UK loses its triple A credit rating (S&P says it will) whether it can regain it.

I watched an interview with Corbyn shortly after the vote last night, and he did not seem too disturbed by the result. That's my honest appraisal of his reaction....not trying to lay blame on him, but he's unaware of impressions and probably does not realize that such a reaction only strengthens the perception that he was not committed to the remain campaign.

Stavros

06-24-2016, 06:09 PM

Which lunatic in this country actually forecast the North East to remain? The mind boggles!
I was surprised by the result although everyone I know voted to leave. Good riddance to the "millionaires club".

But peejaye, who do you think is going to benefit from this result if not millionaires? Someone I know has spent most of the day on the phone with his broker buying stock at bargain prices. The only way you will become a millionaire is when it costs a million to buy a pint of milk!

Stavros

06-24-2016, 06:20 PM

I know where Martin48 is coming from, we have the EDF & their friends over here but ordinary people are concerned about jobs and falling wages. They are not racists!

There was a left wing group led by the Socialist labour party called "Lexit"; of course, they weren't invited to take part in any live televised debates due to the "far right" media in this country ignoring them.
They stood up against EU austerity, privatisation policies and free movement of capital amongst other things.
When Cameron was elected he was obsessed with the UK's National debt. Well; now we can pay it all off(£157bn) within 9 weeks with the £170m we will be saving every week. Difficult decisions my eye!

The left has never had a coherent position on Europe, because it cannot decide amongst itself what a 'revolutionary' strategy looks like. Corbyn and the left of the Labour Party were opposed to the Common Market/EU from the moment the European Communities Act was passed in 1972, and it was only because they lost one election after another to the Tories that they had to find common cause with the Labour moderates, and found it in the social chapter of the Single Market as presented to them by (Socialist) Jacques Delors at the Party Conference in 1986. In his heart, Corbyn is delighted with the result, because for his group, the EU is a capitalist club and the key battleground is Britain where we can elect and de-elect governments and build 'socialism in one country', if not using the same methods as Stalin (though one does wonder about that at times).
By contrast, the Italian Trotskyist, Toni Negri who was an influential intellectual figure in the workers strikes in the 1970s and 1980s in northern Italy before being tainted with Red Brigade violence (which he had nothing to do with), sees globalization as a positive moment in capitalism that has brought workers across the world together in a common fight where before they had been isolated and defeated by host governments (his arguments are in the book Empire co-written with Michael Hardt, published in 2000).

In the UK the bleak reality is that Labour is falling to pieces and Corbyn cannot survive much longer, as if that mattered. The question is if we have a General Election in October will UKIP mop up Labour seats and become the main opposition, which is their current ambition?

But events are moving fast and we have to watch the newsfeeds and not panic...

broncofan

06-24-2016, 06:26 PM

Someone I know has spent most of the day on the phone with his broker buying stock at bargain prices.
The wealthier someone is the easier it is to withstand a financial shock or a decrease in the nominal value of their stock portfolio. It's much harder to tell someone who has savings from 5 decades of hard work tied up in a stock portfolio that the market will correct or that a ten percent overnight decrease in their net worth is just an overreaction of the market. As you indicate volatility presents a risk but also an opportunity for people with lots of capital.

peejaye

06-24-2016, 07:20 PM

But peejaye, who do you think is going to benefit from this result if not millionaires? Someone I know has spent most of the day on the phone with his broker buying stock at bargain prices. The only way you will become a millionaire is when it costs a million to buy a pint of milk!

No one knows what will happen. People are sick of the way this country as been ran by wealthy public schoolboys for so long. Especially up here in the North of England.
Don't panic, chill out and enjoy the footy.

flabbybody

06-24-2016, 07:27 PM

I'm not shedding too many tears for wealthy Brits. Thanks to BREXIT they'll be much fewer of them

chupapau

06-24-2016, 07:39 PM

I guess of one thing both the Leave and the Remain camp positively can agree on, and that is that Cameron is a complete and utter twat.

broncofan

06-24-2016, 09:19 PM

I guess of one thing both the Leave and the Remain camp positively can agree on, and that is that Cameron is a complete and utter twat.
One thing I found interesting about this process is the demand for politicians to resign out of honor. An American politician could be a corpse and would still be grasping the reins of power until there was a formal impeachment process:).

flabbybody

06-25-2016, 01:10 AM

Now the right wing wackos in France have been emboldened
Welcome to FREXIT.
Goodbye EU

Stavros

06-25-2016, 10:09 AM

Now the right wing wackos in France have been emboldened
Welcome to FREXIT.
Goodbye EU

The French vote in two phases in an exhaustive ballot, on the second run if there is a straight rub-off between Le Pen and the Conservative or Socialist candidate, the French will unite to keep Le Pen and her party out of government.

Stavros

06-25-2016, 10:34 AM

24 hours after the referendum result the situation is not clear, and is not going to be clear for some time.

In the UK-
-Cameron has said he will not lead negotiations on Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and the assumption is that the new leader of the Conservative Party will do it. But it remains an assumption because the Tories are deeply divided on the EU and it is not clear if the person they choose in early October will command the respect of the House. Boris Johnson may appear the logical candidate, but while popular in the party, he has no popularity in the Parliamentary party he has only been a member of since 2015, and there are no outstanding candidates to replace David Cameron who are also from the Brexit faction, and no 'unity' candidates either, unless Theresa May is thought the 'safest' pair of hands who will appeal to both sides of the divided party.

-In such cases a vote of No Confidence could well force the new leader to call a General Election, if not in October then in November, maybe even on the Thursday following the US Presidential election.

-The problem with this is that in the current state of the country, a general election result may not produce a House of Commons with one party in overall control. On current evidence the Scottish National Party would remain the main party in Scotland, but while I don't see Labour regaining any of its seats there, the powerful performance of Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson could see the Tories win some seats in Scotland, complicating any moves to a new referendum there on Independence.
But with Labour so weak as a party -and as with the Tories we don't know who will lead the party if Corbyn is ousted at the September party conference- and having lost so many votes to the UKIP position, the nightmare scenario is of a Commons where the two largest parties are the Conservatives and the Scottish National Party with Labour and UKIP making up the rest but no consensus on how to form a government or who should be in it. Even if there is no general election, and even if there is and the Tories are the largest party, just as it was Parliament that took the UK into the Common Market, Parliament must vote on the exit and could either reject it outright, or as is more likely, have to vote on key provisions which in some cases may not meet the demands of UKIP or some Tories for a 'complete break' with the EU.

-For example, last night Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP made it clear on the BBC Newsnight programme that he did not want the UK to leave the single market and that this also means retaining the right of free movement of labour. To his gobsmacked interviewer he had to explain the new arrangement would not allow free movement of citizens, but free movement of Labour would not be a problem. If UKIP were to be a force in the Commons would this pragmatic compromise be acceptable?

-An additional problem is that the markets do not like uncertainty, but that it what we will have for next six months and as this also has an impact on other economies, the EU may try to force the pace of the UK's exit, although I am not sure how they can do this as I don't believe they can force a UK government to take action on Article 50. Either way, the Bank of England may indeed have to spend some or even all of its £250bn contingency fund to prop up the pound and the banks. But what happens if all that money is spent and there is no sign of stable government with coherent policies?

-There is a claim that Brexit never expected to win, and that is why they have no plan and the Tory leaders of it are calling for Article 50 to be delayed rather than be invoked right now. The long-term status of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar must also be dealt with, while a petition calling for a second referendum to be held with a threshold of legitimacy at a turnout of 75% and vote either way of at least 65% has received 100,000 signatures so must be debated in Parliament. Meanwhile, it appears all other business in the Commons has ground to a halt and that the EU will be the only issue on the agenda for the foreseeable future.

-In other words, the referendum is over, the trading has yet to begin, but nobody knows what is being traded, or who is going to lead the talks. One imagines Boris Johnson morphing into Oliver Hardy and whacking his old Etonian rival Laurel Cameron over the head as he explodes- Here's another fine mess you've got me into!

flabbybody

06-25-2016, 03:45 PM

Thank you for the update Stavros...I think
As Churchill stated: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others"

Stavros

06-26-2016, 10:02 AM

As expected, every day brings a new cluster of developments most of which appear to show that the 'popular vote' -as in, voted for by the people- has become the most unpopular (as in, don't like, wish it hadn't happened) vote in living memory.

-The crisis in Labour has taken a new twist as shadow Cabinet MP Hillary Benn has been sacked for trying to organise a leadership coup against Corbyn, Heidi Alexander another shadow Cabinet MP has resigned, some others expected to follow this weekend, with Corbyn's leadership on the line at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party next Tuesday.

-As expected, Theresa May is emerging as the 'stop Boris' candidate in the Tory party, and while Chancellor George Osborne's political ambitions are now dust, he is probably being asked not to resign as turmoil on the markets is expected to start again on Monday and if he resigns that will send a message to the markets that the government has lost control of economic and fiscal policy making.

-Anna Soubry, the Conservative government's small business minister, has said Boris Johnson never believed in an 'independent Britain' outside the EU but joined the Leave campaign to get one over on David Cameron not expecting Leave to win.

-The Independent neatly summaries the issues the Leave campaign said were of cardinal importance that have been magically dismissed, as summed up with staggering and insulting arrogance by an arrogant and insulting Tory Liam Fox (who was sacked as Defence Minister a few years ago for running an independent foreign policy unit in his department):

“A lot of things were said in advance of this referendum that we might want to think about again,” said the Conservative former Defence Minister Liam Fox.

Thus:
-the immigration issue was not that important, as free movement of labour will carry on, if the EU allows the UK to remain in the single market;
-applying for Article 50 terms of withdrawal need not happen soon, if ever (which is the implication made by Liam Fox);
-Nigel Farage also told Good Morning Britain that the claim written on the side of the Vote Leave Battle Bus – that leaving the EU would release £350m a week that could be spent on the NHS – was "a mistake". "It wasn’t one of my adverts," he said.

The petition for a second referendum has now acquired more than 2 million signatures and will be debated but at the moment it looks unlikely to materialise into a second referendum.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-lave-campaign-broken-promises-mounting-live-updates-polls-7103076.html

Meanwhile Donald Trump in Scotland has been seen entertaining Rupert Murdoch...I wonder which one of them has made the most money from the UK stock market's bargain basement sales?

chupapau

06-26-2016, 11:52 AM

The poor and ignorant, as usual, have lost the most. The result of over 2 decades of spin, has spun out of control.

Democracy is a responsibility, do never cast your vote lightly, and always look further than the candidates arguments. The millions of people who fought and died for this right deserve it. Just an advice for the US voters, coming autumn.

peejaye

06-26-2016, 04:23 PM

buttslinger

06-26-2016, 07:44 PM

....can someone please explain to me what exactly; ordinary, working class people, like myself have lost exactly? I would like facts, not speculation......

the future

Stavros

06-26-2016, 08:46 PM

WTF are all you people talking about? Can someone please explain to me what exactly; ordinary, working class people, like myself have lost exactly? I would like facts, not speculation. Simple English would be appreciated.

Respect democracy, the majority have spoken.

Ordinary people like you have lost what we all have lost -political stability.
A year ago a General Election produced a Conservative government with a mandate to rule for five years, by the end of this year we may have a coalition government because both of the main parties are in disarray with no known leader in the Conservative Party identified as the next Prime Minister and the Labour leader's position under intense challenge; and in two or five years time we may have lost Scotland from the Union in which case the UK as you and I know it will also have been lost.

I don't see how any new leader of the Conservative Party can just assume the position of Prime Minister, and we don't know how the exit from the UK will be negotiated, who will do it, or even what issues are going to be on the agenda, as nobody from the Leave campaign thought to write them down. With Scotland in more or less open rebellion and discontent in Northern Ireland threatening to re-open old wounds there, I am surprised that you cannot see that we have lost that degree of stability we had a year ago, even if you did not like either a Tory government or Corbyn as leader of Labour.

This week we may find financial instability added to the political instability, and you as a tax-payer will lose with regard to the value of your pension (or pension fund if you are still working), you will lose out if you have a holiday in continental Europe where a weaker pound means higher prices, and while some financial stability will return at some time we may be left with an economy that investors have no confidence in supporting which in the long term means ordinary people losing their jobs.

If the Leave campaign were able to give us an idea of what it is that in reality we have gained, then my answer might be different, but until Article 50 is invoked and we see what is on the negotiating table we will not have a concrete idea of what we have lost and gained, which leaves us with the situation where this morning Farage could glibly admit that there will be a recession, as if even a minor recession in his terms was no big deal, so you can add to the loss of political stability, financial stability, and confidence in the British economy, a loss of intelligence. But that is not why I do not have a headless chicken for supper. In view of the lies we were told by the Leave campaign, pork pies it is.

fred41

06-26-2016, 08:50 PM

Laphroaig

06-26-2016, 09:10 PM

Scotland (Northern Ireland and unsurprisingly Gibraltar) all voted overwhelmingly to remain. In Scotland's case 62:38 in favour of remaining.

Now, browsing the BBC News website, I came across this article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36633244

Nicola Sturgeon says MSPs at Holyrood could veto Brexit

"Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has told the BBC that Holyrood could try to block the UK's exit from the EU."

I have no idea if this is even feasible. From reading the article it would appear not and that she was manouvered into making the comment by some "decidedly adept questioning". However, it does fuel the flames that the UK is no longer a politically "United" country, despite the result of the Scottish independence referendum.

flabbybody

06-26-2016, 11:42 PM

On Thursday afternoon it cost me $1.50 to buy one Pound Sterling on the spot New York foreign exchange market. On Friday morning it was worth $1.35
Everything that is not created in your own country will cost you much more, from iPhones to French wine.
An American company with British holdings has suffered a one day loss in asset value that has occurred only a few times in modern economic history. Future UK investment is on permanent hold. In the world of finance your once proud island nation has become toxic.
I can go on but I won't

Stavros

06-27-2016, 01:31 AM

You haven't lost anything. You've just changed things. Whether the changes are for better or worse, at least in the more immediate future, only time will tell.
You will hear all types of hyperbole, but with this vote you neither created heaven nor the apocalypse. It will just be different. It might even change the face of the UK in the future, but you'll survive it and move on.
The reality is, with a vote this close, you'll hear a lot of horse shit...for a long time.
Anyway, for better or worse, what's done is done...now move along and make it work.
I'm sure you will.

It is about timing, Fred, because in the long term your pragmatic view may prevail, and the UK will adjust and survive, but in the short to medium term we don't know if that will include Scotland and Northern Ireland, and in the short term in particular the uncertainty over our government spooks the markets, and raises questions among those who might have been thinking of investing in the UK, setting up long term problems of economic growth, or slower growth than we would want. The Brexit argument often conceded that it could take 10 years to re-calibrate the economy, but that could be the last best 10 years of my life, or the 10 years in which a university graduate ought to be developing a professional career, or a school-leaver learning a trade and starting a family, but a decade of high unemployment, high interest rates (or negative interest rates), inflation, low growth, low opportunity, and a generally moribund mood. It is a pessimistic view, but that is not surprising when you look at the people who got us into this mess, people who do not encourage me to think the new arrangements will be better than what we had last week.

NRT

06-27-2016, 05:23 AM

I believe Britain will renegotiate a new treaty with the EU in order to stay in. They don't want to see the break up of the UK with Scotland seeking full independence and Northern Ireland seeking a border union with the Irish Republic. Neither would they want to see a domino effect of others pulling out of the EU. Brexit voters will learn they have been duped especially those who voted on immigration and payments to the EU

peejaye

06-27-2016, 01:04 PM

Thanks Fred, I think your views are realistic.
Stavros; I asked for facts, not speculation or your own personal views but thanks anyway.
I don't regard this country or this government as stable, I never have for the last 5/6 years. Public money as been shared out between the Politicians and their wealthy friends for far too long. One disaster after another. Look at the selling of Royal Mail, undersold by millions and the West Coast rail franchise; £40m pissed against the wall by these arseholes, no one battered an eyelid. Business as usual! Disgrace!
There; that's my views; for what it's worth.
I look forward to the future now this countries biggest arsehole as resigned. Boris Johnson will not be the next leader of the Conservatives so anyone else is better than what we had.

Stavros

06-27-2016, 01:29 PM

Stavros; I asked for facts, not speculation or your own personal views but thanks anyway.

-At this stage, Peejaye, most of the facts you want are still speculations, but you could consider the speculations on the markets with regard to the pound and the value of companies, it at least gives you a sense of how both markets in the UK and world-wide are reacting, because for example, the vote on the EU by impacting on Sterling, has now had an impact on the Yen the Japanese were not expecting, just one example of the reality of globalization and how a crisis that began in the UK could spread through Europe and the rest of the world.

You may have little sympathy for the banking sector, so the report that Investment banks have reacted immediately to Britain’s referendum result, with some of the City’s largest institutions approaching regulators to secure licences and lining up executives to relocate (Ireland or Germany seem to be favoured destinations) may not surprise you, but investment banks do invest, and not just in UK property and their assets are part of the UK's total capital assets and are a source of tax revenue for the government. Given the inherent problems in the UK economy of low productivity and a persistent trade deficit, it is hardly surprising that investors around the world do not see an exit from the EU at this stage as a positive move, but hey, when you are 64 maybe they will have changed their mind about the UK.

The quote above it from this article-
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/26/financial-times-banks-begin-moving-some-operations-out-of-britain.html

The Financial Times wrote an interesting piece on sterling when it fell in February, many of the arguments still hold, just as its review of the sectors of the economy -small businesses, farmers- reveals who the winners and losers were thought to be in February this year.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/caf3e77e-db0e-11e5-98fd-06d75973fe09.html#axzz4CmGSjBlq

flabbybody

06-30-2016, 01:01 AM

Day 6 of BREXIT. We survived.... the world did not end.
On Monday I bought shares of Barclays and Vodafone
I'm back to my normal routine of debauchery. God save the Queen

broncofan

06-30-2016, 03:48 AM

One thing I found interesting about this process is the demand for politicians to resign out of honor. An American politician could be a corpse and would still be grasping the reins of power until there was a formal impeachment process:).
Jeremy Corbyn the exception of course.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-29/brexit-who-could-follow-jeremy-corbyn-as-labour-party-leader

hippifried

06-30-2016, 06:15 AM

I'm not a Brit, just to be clear...

Seems to me though, that all the speculative BS, from the most elated hurrahs to the deepest doom and gloom, is just a lot of rehash of the same old economic theologies. Why the economic focus? Isn't this really more about social issues? Too much foreign influence etc...? Culture clash & culture shock? Yada yada them v us? England never was part of the eurozone anyway, was it? So why would anything economic be happening regardless of brexit or because of it?

As an aside:
Will everyone have to show a passport to 'bark (em & de) the "chunnel" now? Visas?
Can the Welchers, Scotch, or Ulsteranians opt out of brexit? Maybe even join the eurozone on their own?

flabbybody

06-30-2016, 07:26 AM

Passport thing has to be worked out. I'm guessing Brussels will inflict as much pain as possible and that would include the indignity of requiring traveling Brits to show papers.
Scots and Northern Ireland are gone. Scotland will vote for a breakaway referendum and apply for EU membership as an independent nation. Northern Ireland will join the EU via unification with The Irish Republic.
Whales?...unless you're a a Tom Jones fan, who gives a fuck.
For Americans who confuse the terms England and U.K. it will no long matter. The two will be one and the same.

Stavros

06-30-2016, 09:05 AM

This post is a response to those by Hippifried and Flabbybody above-

First, on passports -most continental Europeans have identity cards, which means that while someone from France can drive north to Amsterdam without carrying a passport, they will normally have an official ID card to show if they are stopped (as well as a driving licence and so on). Because we do not have ID cards in the UK we tend to travel with a passport, even though in theory I do not need a passport to travel from London to Paris as long as I have some form of identity to prove that I am Stavros rather than claim I am Napoleon Bonaparte. The main difference if the UK leaves the EU will be that at international borders citizens of the UK will not be able to pass through 'EU Passports' so that if flying from London to Paris I will have to line up alongside Americans, Canadians, the Chinese etc to go through passport control. We will also have to print new passports as the ones we have now have 'European Union' on the cover.

Second, the impact on the UK economy of Brexit will take some years to take effect, because that is how economies work. The underlying weakness of the UK economy means that we are not prepared for Brexit, literally in the sense that neither the existing government nor the Leave campaign ever had a contingency plan or indeed, any plan at all, other than the Bank of England's contingency fund to shore up banks should they come under pressure, and also because the UK economy is fundamentally weak -with London the exception to prove the rule as I have pointed out in posts in other threads.

Productivity in the UK is at an all time low and is I believe the lowest in the advanced economies of the G7 and has been for many years. 20 years ago our deficit on manufactured trade was running at around 1.5% whereas these days it is around 5% which exacerbates our balance of payments deficit and increases the burden of foreign debt. The instant attacks on the Stock Market last week were the first sign that investors did not have confidence in the UK economy as a result of the Referendum vote, but while markets have stabilized, it is a mistake to read this as if the panic was over, because the FTSE100 is made up of the large multi-national corporations whose assets and operations are global,.
By contrast, if you look at the performance of the FTSE 250 List which is made up mostly of British companies, the picture is gloomy as stock on this market fell by 13.6% in the first week of trading and has only recovered by 5%. The impact on UK firms has been spelled out thus:

Banks, house builders and travel stocks have borne the brunt of the pain because they are the most sensitive to the UK economy. Shawbrook, Aldermore, Onesavings Bank and Virgin Money have all lost between 40pc and 50pc of their value. Shares in RBS have fallen around 40pc since the referendum vote and Taylor Wimpey, the UK’s biggest house builder, is off nearly 40pc. Foxtons and easyJet have been the first companies to issue profit warnings in the wake of Brexit.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/27/why-we-should-be-looking-at-the-ftse-250-and-not-the-ftse-100-to/

We know that the first reaction of British firms has been to cut investment forecasts, and to predict that in addition to weaker profits, hiring will slow down, wages will not increase, and job losses are inevitable. These may be signs of a recession rather than economic collapse, so the language of panic may well have been overdone for political purposes, but it would have been strange to think that the UK economy on leaving the EU would suddenly burst into a frenzy of investment and productivity when we knew in practical terms the reality of leaving will not begin for a minimum of two years when the formal break begins. And if you accept that contracts signed for say 10 years will be honoured, the full impact will take 10 years and on present evidence, even with Scotland remaining in the UK the overall picture looks bleak. Bear in mind also, that when Mrs Thatcher began the demolition of Britain's manufacturing sector (we lost 25% of industrial production capacity under her leadership) and sent the UK into recession, we had North Sea oil and gas revenue at its peak to fund the worst hit -in effect, billions of ££ was spent on unemployment benefit throughout the 1980s. We do not have revenues at that level anymore, indeed thousands of workers in Aberdeen have been laid off as the oil and gas industry in the UK begins to decline.

The third point, mostly in relation to Hippifried's post, is that this is a very big deal indeed, and is the most traumatic event in British politics in my lifetime, and that includes Suez in 1956, and the election of Mrs Thatcher in 1979. As I said in an earlier post, a year ago David Cameron won a parliamentary majority for the Conservative Party, their first since 1993, and his party was on course to rule without challenge for five years. Now Cameron is about to go, both his party and the main opposition Labour party are in open civil war over their leadership, nobody has a plan for Brexit, nobody has a clue what the country will even look like in two years time, the economy is an express train without brakes heading toward a brick wall, the UK has plunged the rest of the EU into the same shadow of economic uncertainty and by taking itself out will be taking out of the EU the values and expertise in law and diplomacy the UK brought to it while weakening the UK's reputation internationally and, for example, casting doubt on the right of the UK to sit on the Security Council of the UN.

The point about my Texit thread is that you start out with a stupid idea, but through a permissive attitude to political debate, end up losing what you thought you could not lose in a million years, in one year.

We got here because when Cameron's Tory party was in coalition with the Liberal Democrats between 2010-2015 it came under pressure from UKIP which won more representatives to the European Parliament than the Conservatives, and when two Tory MPs in the Commons switched parties joining UKIP, he panicked and promised an EU referendum if the party won the 2015 election, and he did so to quieten down the anti-EU faction in his party that has been there since 1972. What Cameron did not expect was to win a majority in the 2015 election, but he did, and with UKIP failing to make any impact, it gave him a strong hand -and he blew it, betting the car, and the house, and indeed, the country on a throw of the dice. Had the man any brains, he would have not held the referendum, but he decided not to renege on his promise convinced that Remain would win comfortably, and as a result we are living in a nightmare that is not going to end soon.

Today Theresa May has announced she is running for leadership of the party, the same Home Secretary who wants to introduce a law to monitor internet browsing habits and emails, who has presided over the shambles known as the UK Border Agency, and who wants to repeal the Human Rights Act (199-eight) Boris Johnson, who will put his name forward this morning, is a fraud and a liar -he was sacked from The Times for writing stories that were made up because he couldn't be bothered to do proper research- and who challenged Cameron because when they were at Eton Johnson considered Cameron a 'stupid boy' and was incensed when the lad became Prime Minister, not the best foundations on which to lead the country. He has been an MP for barely a year, and his attendance in the House has been occasional, possibly the worst of any of the new MPs who were elected in 2015, and before that he won two terms as Mayor of London, reneging on almost every promise he made.

The result of the EU referendum vote is, put simply, a catastrophe for the UK.

peejaye

06-30-2016, 02:47 PM

Stavros

06-30-2016, 03:26 PM

That's just ALL your opinion again! Stavros; Are you a Politician?....because you certainly sound like one!
David Cameron, on one of the televised debates, mentioned "The economy" almost 100 times!

As hippifred said; It's more about the social side of things and people! Remember them? NOT fcuking money and the god damn economy!

In addition to, or as a substitute for my views you can verify facts about the UK economy by looking them up, so allowing for measurements that may not be precise, you can ask questions about and get reasonably factual answers on productivity, the debt, investor confidence and plans and so forth, and it is utterly critical given that we live in a capitalist society.

In the meantime Boris Johnson has now pulled out of the leadership contest for the Conservative Party, possibly because of a major falling out with Michael Gove, whose wife let it be known in a 'leaked' email Johnson does not have the endorsement of Rupert Murdoch.
This leaves Theresa May as the leading candidate, and if she does win, her long established position of seniority in the government means we will not need a General Election, which would also be a relief to the Labour Party as it gives them four years in which to sort themselves out if they can.
She will be challenged by Liam Fox, who was Defence Secretary in the Coalition governent before being forced to resign in disgrace, which clearly annoyed him so that he now believes he can just waltz back into a position of power as if his dodgy past had never happened. There are times when you cannot be surprised if most people think politicians live on another planet.
You can read about Fox here-
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/02/less-shameless-world-liam-fox-s-career-would-have-ended-2011

peejaye

06-30-2016, 03:46 PM

Taking a break from your constituents again Stavros? :D
You are very well informed Stavros although I suspect our views on Politics differ very much!

trish

06-30-2016, 04:05 PM

As I understand it the vote on BREXIT is a recommendation leave the EU and although it may be politically impossible to refuse it is not legally binding. Here in the US we’re hearing a lot of stories about buyers regret. There are people claiming they only voted to leave as a protest - never dreaming the leaves would win.

If someone hoping to replace Cameron runs for Prime Minister promising they will not officially apply to leave the EU and if that person wins, it can be read as a mandate by the people reversing BREXIT. Am I right? To me it seems a more reasonable approach than petitioning for another vote to leave or stay, yet serves that function. Is there anyone running for Prime Minister making such a promise or is there anyone likely to?

(meant to ask this here and not in the TEXIT thread - sorry).

flabbybody

06-30-2016, 04:37 PM

Article 50 is the playbook for leaving EU but it doesn't say what conditions have to be met to complete the exit. It gives a two year deadline for EU and the leaving party to negotiate new agreements. What happens if there's no deal after two years? No one knows.

The clock doesn't start until Brussels is officially notified by the government of Great Britain that it is invoking Article 50. When will that happen? No one knows.

Can the new PM choose to ignore the referendum and not trigger Article 50.
No one knows.

hope I've answered your question.

trish

06-30-2016, 04:53 PM

In part. It's the "No one knows" part that I'm still unsure about :) Thanks.

Stavros

07-01-2016, 01:32 AM

To respond to posts above, the simple fact is that no EU member state has invoked Article 50 before so in fact nobody knows how it works. Prior to the Lisbon Treaty of 2007 there was no formal mechanism for withdrawal, which had happened twice. Algeria was part of France when the Community was created in the 1950s but left the Common Market when it became independent in 1962. Greenland as part of Denmark actually voted against joining the EU in 1973 but was too small to affect the overall vote, after independence in 1979 an argument over fishing rights strained relations and after a referendum in 1985 Greenland left the EU.

In the UK, the legal position is that we became members of the European Economic Community through the European Communities Act of 1972 and until and unless that law is repealed, we remain in the EU. At the moment the only party that wants to overturn the referendum result is the Liberal Democrat Party, the party that had been in Coalition with the Tories between 2010-2015 but lost heavily in last year's General Election. However, there is still a means whereby the UK could remain in the EU. The government has already created a team of civil servants from various government departments to 'prepare the groundwork' for an EU exit, but the leadership contender for the Tory Party, Theresa May has said she will, if she becomes leader and therefore Prime Minister, create a 'Department for Brexit' to do the spade work.

The assumption is therefore that the UK government will seek to negotiate terms for an exit before invoking Article 50 rather than invoke Article 50 and then negotiate the terms, and while some EU member states have implied a 'sooner rather than later' action, none of them can force the UK to invoke Article 50. The fundamental issue will be the status of the UK's access to the Single Market and whether or not it can negotiate a unique deal on the free movement of people to reduce it or even to opt out of it. Other issues also exist, such as the overall terms of trade, tariffs, the status of EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens in the EU, but the assumption is that as Parliament is supreme, any deal must be put to the House. What this does is leave open the possibility that if Parliament does not think the UK has a good deal, it will not approve of it and not invoke Article 50 and remain in the EU. Hardliners on the Leave side already believe they are being set up for a 'great betrayal' while others seem resigned to the UK leaving on the basis that the EU will not concede anything to the UK because it would encourage others to do so, and because some are so offended by the referendum results they want to see the back of the UK anyway.

The only good thing in this is that Theresa May looks like she will be the Prime Minister, through one cannot underestimate the ability of the Tories in their present condition to choose an idiot like Michael Gove. The point is that because Mrs May has been a senior figure in the government for some years there will be no call for a new General Election, certainly not from Labour as in their present state the result would be fatal. Thus, if she becomes Prime Minister, both parties can spend the next four years dealing with their internal problems, while presenting an appearance of stability to please the markets, sort of. Unfortunately, it does look like our domestic politics will be obsessed with Europe for the next two years.

Theresa May has also signalled that she will not make the repeal of the Human Rights Act a priority, and that she has different views on economic policy from George Osborne, but it is still early days and every day seems to fling some new hot potato onto the plate.

trish

07-01-2016, 05:32 AM

Thanks Stavros, for the very concise and yet seemingly thorough reply. Well done.

flabbybody

07-01-2016, 06:47 AM

Not exactly clear what took Boris down but won't argue with the result.
Theresa May seems like a rational, experienced politician. Even though she's from the Remain camp she's since indicated she won't be part of a "great betrayal"
As you say her emergence as Tory front runner has definitely had a calming effect on global markets.

Stavros

07-01-2016, 08:53 AM

Last night on the BBC the EU's Trade Commissioner stated that no negotiations on trade could begin until Article 50 has been invoked and the UK has left the Union. This sets up a dilemma for both the EU and the UK -for the EU either to not want to offer the UK a special deal which other members may then demand for themselves; or to do so because the UK is 'too big to leave'; but it makes it harder for the UK to find a way to use a vote in Parliament to prevent Article 50 from being invoked. Buyer's regret may mean the shop will not offer a refund on any basis.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36678222

Meanwhile, in House of Cards, episode 666...
Those of you who think House of Cards is entertainment (I was never a fan) may want to read the account of the Cuckoo Nest Plot which implies that last February George Osborne, wanting to take over from Cameron when he was due to resign some time in 2017, persuaded Michael Gove to persuade a reluctant Boris Johnson to stab Cameron in the back by becoming the voice of the Leave campaign which he, Johnson would lose, taking his career with it to Osborne's benefit. This suggests that a referendum we did not need, has ended up demolishing the career of the main threat to George Osborne, but has also ended Osborne's dream of being Prime Minister (though he does get to swan around the world as Foreign Secretary in a May government) while taking the UK out of the EU, if it indeed that happens because it wasn't supposed to be like this. Whether or not they needed to go so far to 'stop Boris' suggests they didn't care either way and that the party is indeed Cuckoo.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/30/how-boris-johnson-was-brought-to-his-knees-by-the-cuckoo-nest-pl/

But here is the intriguing cross-over between British politics and the US Presidential election. The unthinkable may not be President Trump, but Trump not getting the nomination at all. Cleveland may well become famous again, but for whom will that bell in the Old Stone Church toll in July?

buttslinger

07-02-2016, 06:20 PM

Kevin Spacey tells a funny story about how he was in a park in London on a fine day......when, suddenly, he sees a thief grab a Lady's purse and run away. So he gets up to chase the guy (in true movie star tradition) ...goes ten feet...... twists his ankle in a little rut and falls in agony to the ground.
Nobody even knew FDR was a cripple, no reporter ever squealed about JFK's side women.
Now I'm not saying we should put the Queen in charge of England, or feed the US Constitution into a super computer and let it run things, but I am saying that people fuck up everything, and if people knew all the real shit that goes down in the Halls of Justice, we would have to enact Marshall Law.
The USA is not greater than England, we have more money.
If I had money I would make the Jackson Family look normal.

Stavros

07-03-2016, 12:36 PM

buttslinger

07-03-2016, 07:24 PM

..well who knows, and really, does it matter?

Exactly.
What matters is that people see the Mexican in front of them at the 7-11 as more important than the Pacific Trade Agreement.
And that Obama taking my gun away is more important than a living minimum wage.
Your posts are perfect Stavros, and I respect that.
But I am pretty sure the lion's share of dudes that roll through here to see tranny cock don't read your posts.
Without name-calling and fighting, the politics and religion section is a yawnfest.
The people who voted for Brexit are the same caliber of people who vote for Trump.
Short on insight, Wide on views.
Government has become totally political, there are no more facts.
I told my brother the joke about the Teacher who was asked which side of the Scopes trial he was on....Divine Creation....or Evolution?
The teacher shrugged and said "I can teach it either way"
My brother is a teacher and got really mad at me and my joke.
For every one teacher there are five "F" students.
Bring back the smoke filled backrooms.
What the people know hurts them.
Bring back Queen Elizabeth I.
Let's make the English Empire great again.
OK, Stav, thanks for the correction, we now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
Hey, who do I have to blow to get a thumbs up around here?

broncofan

07-03-2016, 07:54 PM

Hey, who do I have to blow to get a thumbs up around here?
You gotta contribute a little bit man. Think about the subject and write the best most relevant thing you can think of. I'm not sure what your post had to do with brexit. If there's immigration into Britain, it's probably not via Mexico. No offense:)

flabbybody

07-03-2016, 09:46 PM

I'm happy to admit that much of my insight into BREXIT and all things British is thanks to posts by Stavros.
Of course, as you state, most HA eyeballs are here for the subject of tranny cock, which is why the site was constructed with a separate politics & religion section.

And who says the two subjects are mutually exclusive?

buttslinger

07-03-2016, 11:38 PM

I'll let you guys in on a little secret: I'm not here to win friends and influence people. I'm here for laughs.
Brexit proved I got my racist bone from my English DNA.
You had to read between the lines, but it might as well have been the vote whether or not to make England white again.
White as Kate Middleton's butt.
The truth comes in flavors.
And nobody here uses their own names.
You should all be ashamed of your selves!!!!!
Beneath all the politeness people are animals.
Trained Animals.
Hail to the Redskins!!!
HA HA HA HA!

hippifried

07-04-2016, 01:40 AM

You had to read between the lines, but it might as well have been the vote whether or not to make England white again.

Thank you.
I was trying to be polite in my other post. Guess that's just helping the denial. Maybe not really just white either. God save the defender of the faith, language, superior blood lines, culture, and currency against all those other people.

hippifried

07-04-2016, 06:46 AM

One more observation:
Just seems like one of the biggest problems the Brits have with the EU is that they're not in control of the EU.

buttslinger

07-04-2016, 06:58 AM

https://s31.postimg.org/syzuoj663/tumblr_o9rvoj_DGAq1smqzfro5_540.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/hzencxfqv/)free photo hosting (https://postimage.org/)

buttslinger

07-04-2016, 07:08 AM

Happy Independence Day!!!

Stavros

07-04-2016, 09:55 AM

One more observation:
Just seems like one of the biggest problems the Brits have with the EU is that they're not in control of the EU.

Hippifried this is close to the mark. The UK was not involved in the creation of the EU and has thus never been able to feel it had any 'ownership' over the project even though in the 40 years since we joined the UK has become one of the 'Big Three' along with France and Germany, and has had a major role in the creation of EU law and its regulatory framework, making the claim that 'our laws are made in Brussels' hollow to the extent that Hungarians for example could complain that EU law is in fact made in London.

The absence of the UK from the emerging EU fit in with possibly the greatest curse of the post-1945 world, namely the UK's belief in its 'Special Relationship' with the USA and the fact that with the exception of Edward Heath, the Prime Minister who took us into Europe, every Prime Minister from Attlee to Blair believed the Atlantic Relationship was the most important of the UK's alliances, through the Cold War and in particular in the case of 9/11 and regime change in Iraq. Tony Blair in 1997 when he became Prime Minister claimed he would put the UK 'at the heart of Europe' yet by 2001 was more concerned to partner the US, incredibly because he thought he would be able to contain the worst excesses of the US in Iraq, where, once Saddam had been overthrown, the British part of the 'Coalition Provisional Authority' was barely a shadow to supremo Bremer and the UK was rarely consulted on major decisions.
The Chilcot Report into Iraq will be published on Wednesday July 6th.

For those interested, there was once a proposal, prior to the creation of the Common Market in 1957, that France and the UK merge. The proposal was made by the French Prime Minister in 1956, Guy Mollet, who not only proposed the merger but, in spite of being a socialist, was prepared to accept Elizabeth as 'la Reine' of the new partnership which some wags have said might have been called Frangleterre....
You can read about it here-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/an-unlikely-marriage-how-france-proposed-to-the-uk-6229169.html

peejaye

07-05-2016, 05:15 PM

Stavros

07-06-2016, 01:06 AM

Just over a week after the result and we hear interest rates may be cut EVEN further to help protect the economy and every'ones friend "George Osborne" rumoured to be cutting some sort of business taxes to encourage overseas investors to the UK!
Thank the Lord we never listened to you lot and hung ourselves!

Peejaye it is too early to say where the economy is heading. I thought interest rates would rise but I was wrong, but I still think at some point in the future rates and taxes must rise to raise revenue for the government even though the Chancellor has said he will not meet his target of achieving a budget surplus by 2020 and that comes on top of his statement in March that he will not be able to cut debt as a share of GDP this year. On top of that today trading was suspended in three major commercial property funds handled by Standard Life, Aviva and M&G, and some of the Russell group universities have said that universities in the EU are declining to seek UK involvement in new pan-EU research projects.

The legal situation is no clearer today. Oliver Letwin, who was appointed by David Cameron after the Leave vote to head the 'Brexit Unit' has said both that the Prime Minister can use the Royal Prerogative to invoke Article 50 without a vote in the Commons, but that the Commons would indeed vote-
Letwin claimed that although government lawyers had said the triggering of article 50 was a matter for the royal prerogative and not parliament, MPs would have a role in the process of Brexit since it would require the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/05/brexit-can-go-ahead-without-parliament-vote-article-50-government-lawyers-say

This still makes it possible for the Commons to reject the government's decision to invoke Article 50 just as the Commons could reject any negotiated deal if it doesn't think it is good enough. There is also an elegant argument by a professor (emeritus) of public international law -Philip Allot- that the Referendum on the EU does not give the UK government the right or authority to exit the EU, and amongst others he makes the cogent point that-
...the original motivation for the holding of a referendum seems not to have been the public interest, but the particular interest of a political party.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/30/politics-brexit-unlawful-eu-uk

So far this week began with the resignation of Nigel Farage, and may end with Theresa May being named as the next Prime Minister. But as Harold Wilson once said, A week is a long time in politics...

hippifried

07-06-2016, 07:01 AM

Okay everyone. Enter the hand basket in an orderly fashion. Hell's thataway.

flabbybody

07-06-2016, 07:25 AM

Where's the fucking Bank of England?
Are they waiting for Sterling to break 1.20

Stavros

07-06-2016, 08:21 AM

Where's the fucking Bank of England?
Are they waiting for Sterling to break 1.20

The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney is being seen here as the cool voice of reason while all around him politicians are fighting like rats in a sack. I think there is a short-to-medium term strategy -probably the only one the Bank can provide in the circumstances- which offers commercial banks the right to lend, while also offering up to £250 bn as 'piggy bank' the key point being that they believe they can live with a lower valued pound if it offsets sudden and sharp declines in other sectors of the economy. The usual point is that it will increase the cost of imports but boost exports. The high-value possibly over-valued commercial property sector is taking the flak because it requires long-term planning but there has been a view held long before the Referendum campaign began that property in the UK is over-valued anyway and is due for a 're-evaluation'.

The problem is that for all the talk by Leave that the UK has the 'fifth largest economy in the world', we also have the lowest productivity in the G7 countries, a debt the Chancellor has now said will take longer to pay off, a construction sector lacking in investor confidence at the same time people are complaining of shortages of housing, and the longer term problem that we don't know which investors are put off by the uncertainty over the UK's membership of the EU, those who will withdraw if Brexit happens, and those who want to be part of the 'new Britain' if and when it does. The crucial point of the Bank's policy is to contain the spread of doubt for as long as possible, but that means politicians taking up the slack to give the UK a better sense of where we are headed.

On that basis, while it may look like a sinking ship, Mark Carney may in fact be steering the ship past the rocks we can see on the coastline, but before us is the open sea...

holzz

07-07-2016, 06:00 PM

seems likely there will be a recession. probably not very deep, but still could mean job losses.

and also, if it fucks our economy up, then what's the point of leaving????

Stavros

07-07-2016, 11:30 PM

seems likely there will be a recession. probably not very deep, but still could mean job losses.

and also, if it fucks our economy up, then what's the point of leaving????

No pain...no gain. Andrea will there to meet you in the sunlit uplands of the world's best country when that great day comes.

flabbybody

07-08-2016, 01:06 AM

Stavros

07-08-2016, 01:41 AM

Andrea was a Leave person. That doesn't mean I automatically hate her. Lotsa reasonable people got caught up in the insanity.
I simply want to root for the most qualified lady for new PM.
So who is it Stavros, Theresa or Andrea?

I am not a Tory but I would choose Theresa May because of her seniority in government -she was also an elected Tory councillor in the London Borough of Merton from 1986-1994 before being elected to Parliament in 1997, and was in a couple of Shadow positions before becoming Home Secretary in the Coalition government in 2010, but that has been her only job in government and it is said she doesn't know much about economics or foreign affairs. For me the point is that even though she voted to Remain her seniority means we would not need a general election now and as I said in a post at the beginning of the week that would calm the markets -this may now be a relative term- and offer some clear guidance on the way Article 50 is going to be handled, but note that at the moment as I understand it, Cameron will not leave office until the end of September. But that leaves May two uninterrupted months to wrap up the Home Office (nothing happens in August anyway unless it is a crisis) and get on top of the Brexit brief.

Leadsom has little experience of government and it is alleged she has embellished her CV to make it appear she was in senior positions in the City of London when she was not, and is also a recent convert to Christianity and may or may not have been in direct contact with Almighty God, a subject on which she is somewhat coy.
The problem is that there is as wide a gulf between the Conservative Party in Parliament and the country as there is in the case of Labour, and just as Corbyn is closer to the rank and file members of Labour, Leadsom both looks and sounds like those awful Tory women in the Shires who think the Telegraph crossword puzzle is a tougher challenge than the Times, who organise garden parties, make cakes and knit sweaters and do the flowers for Church on Sunday. She abstained on the same-sex marriage vote and critically, is a Brexiteer who the members 'may' think is less likely to renege on Article 50 than May.

The rational view is that the 150,000 Tory voters will choose experience over enthusiasm, but May's record in the Home Office on immigration has not been spectacular, and I don't know how far Brexit will be a deal breaker. On balance I think May will win, but having been wrong on the EU vote don't knock me if I get it wrong. If Leadsom does win, I dread to think of the consequences for this country, and they are already bad enough.

peejaye

07-08-2016, 02:01 PM

seems likely there will be a recession. probably not very deep, but still could mean job losses.

and also, if it fucks our economy up, then what's the point of leaving????

Where were the "voices of concern" when the Redcar Steel works closed, all the pits, shipyards & the majority of our heavy industry resulting in millions of people losing their jobs. Don't make me laugh!
Don't forget; the government will soon have an extra £161m to spend every week so don't lose to much sleep over it, I shan't.

flabbybody

07-11-2016, 03:32 PM

Andrea out. Somewhat clear sailing for new PM May.
Sterling crawls above 1.30, stocks rally.
End of world put on hold. Maybe we'll start calling her Mother Theresa.
Stay tuned

Stavros

07-11-2016, 05:15 PM

Theresa May will become the 76th Prime Minister on Wednesday 13th July 2016. Earlier today she said:

"Brexit means Brexit and we're going to make a success of it," adding that there would be "no attempt to rejoin [the EU] by the back door".

She wants to put workers on the Boards of companies, curb executive pay, and tackle poverty -indeed someone on the lunchtime news noted her speech could have been made by ex-Labour leader Ed Miliband.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36760953

The markets may show some sign of relief for a while, but I suspect Theresa May has yet to prove to the wider Conservative Party that she is as committed to the UK's exit from the EU as she says she is. On this issue, the devil will be in the details.

But one is relieved to see the back of the horrendous Andrea Leadsom, one hopes she will also lose her job in government and join Michael Gove on the backbenches.

peejaye

07-11-2016, 05:33 PM

flabbybody

07-11-2016, 05:58 PM

right now the same old shit as before seems very comforting

Stavros

07-11-2016, 10:32 PM

Curbing executive pay, tackling poverty? DO NOT hold your breath!
Where have we heard all this bollox before? Cameron.....and executive pay as gone through the roof, poverty is out of control with 25% of children in this country living in or bordering on poverty! The wealthy will no doubt dispute this figure?
More austerity looming, especially for the North and public money been thrown at consultants acting for private companies, etc & millions more spent on public enquiries about shit no ones concerned about!
Basically.....the same old shit as before! :crap

Peejaye you are right to be, shall I say, sceptical? Theresa May is not in fact free to write her own agenda because she was elected on the 2015 Tory Manifesto, which is at least a guide to policy, but also has been lumbered with Brexit preparations. I suspect that when she returns from the Palace on Wednesday evening to draft the agenda for her first Cabinet meeting, Brexit will be Item No 1. What she has said in policy terms can thus be considered aspirational, I seem to recall David Cameron making a lot of socially agreeable promises when he became leader of the Party, 'hugging a hoody' (poverty), 'hugging a husky' (climate change), hugging his wife (no comment), but not realising any of these policies because he was forced into a coalition. It is too early to tell. One can only hope that Mrs May establishes a sense of order and direction in government policy, though we need to know if there will be talks before the invocation of Article 50, a Parliamentary vote on it, or if the Royal Prerogative will be used. And I think we need to know this by Friday.

peejaye

07-12-2016, 01:09 PM

Thanks Stavros. My opinion is things can't be any worse but don't get me started on the last woman PM we had!:banghead
I am worried though!

Stavros

07-12-2016, 04:10 PM

Thanks Stavros. My opinion is things can't be any worse but don't get me started on the last woman PM we had!:banghead
I am worried though!

It is more likely to get worse before it gets better. Academics in Universities working mostly in medicine, science and engineering have already been told they cannot apply for new research funding on joint projects in the EU under the Horizon 2020 programme until the status of the UK has been resolved, one example of how uncertainty affects real people and real jobs.
However, the pound has moved up slightly against the dollar, and Theresa May has the advantage of being the winner in this current moment in the Tory Party, but is on notice from the militant Brexiteers who will want one of their own to have a prominent job in the new Cabinet.

There is another way of looking at this, and that is to compare the Conservatives to the Republican Party in the USA, not least because Andrea Leadsom received funding from the NeoCon American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC] to attend one of its conferences. ALEC is part-funded by the Koch Brothers and denies climate change, is linked to TEA Party issues on tax, gun ownership and so on, and we know Leadsom is a 'born again Christian' -but has conceded defeat to Mrs May.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/andrea-leadsom-tea-party

It was Theresa May who pointed out to the Tory Party conference in 2002 that people thought of it as 'the Nasty Party', and it must be said that on social issues such as same-sex partnerships and marriage Theresa May, the daughter of a Church of England vicar, has been as liberal as Cameron, and that where the US Republican Party has become increasingly opposed to social issues that Americans approve of or are relaxed about, the Tories have travelled in the opposite direction, even if those Tory ladies in the Shires are closer to Leadsom than they are to May. The speech I cited from yesterday also implies she is a 'One Nation' Tory rather than a tax-obsessed, market-driven 'God and Country' nutter, so the comparison with the Republicans doesn't go far these days. Theresa May is no Thatcher.

May does have weaknesses, such as a lack of knowledge of Foreign Policy although like every Prime Minister since Anthony Eden she is pro-Israeli, but did not visit Israel for the first time until 2014, whereas Gordon Brown (whose father was also cloth) was taken to Israel on a regular basis by his father when young. Although May was in favour of repealing the Human Rights Act (199-eightand it is n the 2015 Manifesto, I think she has put this aside for time being, whereas the Investigatory Powers Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigatory_Powers_Bill that will enable the govt to access internet browsing habits and emails is still going through Parliament subject to whatever amendments the opposition can get out of it. A lot depends on how much time is taken up through Brexit, the current assumption being that May will be seeking informal talks with the EU between now and October and that Article 50 might not be invoked until next year at the earliest, I think that is what I heard on BBC-2s Newsnight last night. But as usual these days, all of these are subject to change.

May's stance on Israel is reviewed here, though be warned the link keeps re-refreshing and is a real nuisance.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/theresa-may-jews-and-israel-6-connections/

peejaye

07-13-2016, 07:30 PM

Well; Good riddance to bad rubbish!
In the 1980's we had Thatcher-ism, now I suspect we will get May-hem!
Camerons legacy is the 1,109,309 of his own citizens registered with food banks and taking us out of the EU!
Most complementary remark I heard today about him was a "modern" leader?

peejaye

07-14-2016, 03:02 PM

So Boris Johnson(Bo Jo) and David Davies are going to lead negotiations on our exit from Europe?
This may surprise some people; but I think they may do a pretty good job. Davies is one of the most intelligent Tories out there and Boris is very popular overseas, people like him and he makes them laugh. They don't know him like we do maybe?
A mixed new cabinet, not yet complete, shame about Hammond as Chancellor, a nasty character "up to his eyebrows" in "dirty money". The most important post behind PM so expect few changes for the "less well off".

peejaye

07-15-2016, 04:21 PM

An alternative view can be found here; Some of you won't like it!

http://johnpilger.com/articles/why-the-british-said-no-to-europe

Stavros

07-16-2016, 03:43 AM

An alternative view can be found here; Some of you won't like it!
http://johnpilger.com/articles/why-the-british-said-no-to-europe

Where does one begin with the rubbish that Pilger writes? Two examples:

The reason millions of refugees have fled the Middle East - first Iraq, now Syria - are the invasions and imperial mayhem of Britain, the United States, France, the European Union and Nato. Before that, there was the wilful destruction of Yugoslavia.
-As if the extinction of civil society over 40 years of brutal and corrupt military dictatorship were not enough, and poor governance of no relevance. As if Tito had not clearly failed to build an integrated federal state of Yugoslavia so that when he died it collapsed and revived a murderous Serbian nationalism that adopted mass murder as a route to the creation of a long-established 'Greater Serbia' -promoted by Pilger's old flame Milosovic.

In the week of the referendum vote, no British politician and, to my knowledge, no journalist referred to Vladimir Putin's speech in St. Petersburg commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June, 1941. The Soviet victory - at a cost of 27 million Soviet lives and the majority of all German forces - won the Second World War.

-So the role of the British, the Americans, the French, the Dutch, the Polish, and others from the Normandy Landings and the invasion of Southern Italy in the defeat of Nazi Germany was just an unnecessary sideshow?

rodinuk

07-16-2016, 03:45 AM

...
Camerons legacy is the 1,109,309 of his own citizens registered with food banks and taking us out of the EU!
...

So much for same-sex marriage then....

flabbybody

07-16-2016, 05:01 AM

Stavros

07-16-2016, 11:58 AM

What did the Soviets do with American and British POW's at the end of WW 2?
https://stevehollier.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/the-tragic-story-of-the-50000-british-and-american-soldiers-who-disappeared-into-the-soviet-gulag-never-to-return/

Most of them other than those who died, were repatriated by 1953. Unfortunately the author of the article you have linked has relied on Nigel Cawthorne's book 'The Iron Cage', which offers no documentary evidence to support the claims he makes, but does ignore the documentary evidence in the form of the US/Russian Joint Commission on POW/MIA that was established in 1992 and reached the conclusion I have noted above, though it does seem some US service personnel involved in the Korean and Vietnam Wars may have been taken prisoner and remained in the USSR or chose to live there. You can read the report in this link-
http://memory.loc.gov/frd/tfrussia/tfrhtml/tfrsplit/tfr099.html

You may be interested in some of Cawthorne's other books -

Sex Lives of the Popes
Sex Lives of the US Presidents
Sex Lives of the Great Dictators
Sex Lives of the Kings and Queens of England
Sex Lives of the Hollywood Goddesses
Sex Lives of the Hollywood Goddesses 2
Sex Lives of the Hollywood Idols
Sex Lives of the Great Artists
Sex Lives of the Great Composers
Sex Lives of the Famous Gays
Sex Lives of the Famous Lesbians
Sex Lives of the Roman Emperors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Cawthorne

Stavros

10-02-2016, 04:04 AM

The Conservative Party meets for its annual conference in Birmingham this week, and the Conservative newspaper The Telegraph offers the clearest indication yet of how the mechanics of Brexit will happen. As the article below indicates, the government intends to propose to Parliament a Great Repeal Bill which will have the effect of repealing the European Communities Act of 1972 that was the legal instrument by which the UK joined the European Economic Community as it was then called, and that this new Act will mark the legal cessation of EU membership when Article 50 is invoked. What will happen after that is that Parliament will be able to sift through 40 years of law to decide which of those laws should be retained and which should be repealed. For example, laws on the rights of the employed at work may be retained while the Human Rights Act of 1996 may be repealed (this latter proposal was in the Manifesto of the party in the 2015 General Election). This instrument will thus break the formal relationship with the EU but it is not really clear what the new relationship with the Single Market will be, as this 'Hard Brexit' may require the UK to re-negotiate every new arrangement (or none at all for those who want a 'clean break) whereas a 'soft Brexit' may seek an exit with existing arrangements retained or modified in order to maintain the UK's full or partial access to the Single Market, the issue on which European ministers have said there can be no privileges for the UK and the main issue of contention within the Conservative Party.

The article also claims that this Repeal Act will 'restore sovereignty' to the UK ignoring the fact that the UK never ceded sovereignty to the EU at any time since 1973 as the Government throughout those years always had the power to veto any and every law proposed or passed by the EU through its own Parliament. As was seen in the Referendum debates, this fact was either ignored or distorted because those opposed to the EU did not want to accept that it has been the UK which proposed many of the EU's laws and regulations, that the laws and regulations that were passed were not vetoed because of that or because they were considered good for Britain, and that in any sense of the word the Government of the UK has only limited sovereignty in a globalised economy -the government does not control the value of Sterling, for example.

Nevertheless, it is a good statement because it is clear and sets a clear agenda, one that Labour led by Jeremy Corby must support because,
a) he has opposed the EU his entire political life, and
b) the Repeal may be followed by the selective process whereby Labour can protect those EU laws, mostly on worker's rights which it supports.

Superficially, this is a win-win situation for Theresa May, she shows she has a clear agenda, and can make robust decisions everyone can agree on. But as ever with these things, the devil will lie in the detail.

The article is here-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/10/01/the-great-repeal-bill-is-a-bold-move-by-theresa-may/

martin48

10-03-2016, 07:06 PM

As long as we can keep Johnny Foreigner out then it will all over by March 2019. We will re-enter the 1950s and behave like North Korea but with no significant army. As long as we can grow our own food, work as the sweatshop of the world, bow down to the superior classes - then our work is done (For Americans, please note this is sarcasm)

flabbybody

10-03-2016, 08:11 PM

sad thing is that many who voted for BREXIT would not have detected the sarcasm

flabbybody

10-07-2016, 03:21 AM

Sterling traded below 1.18 tonight
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-06/pound-plunges-6-1-percent-in-biggest-drop-since-brexit-result

holzz

10-07-2016, 08:13 AM

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36956418

we're doing pretty well, amidst the doom and gloom after the referendum.

rodinuk

10-08-2016, 03:40 AM

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36956418

we're doing pretty well, amidst the doom and gloom after the referendum.

Yeah right - we haven't even left yet....

But sterling is currently trading against the dollar (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/currency/default.stm) at $1.29 - a year ago it was worth $1.57.

The pound has also fallen significantly against the euro (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/currency/11/13/twelve_month.stm). It is currently worth about €1.15. A year ago it was worth €1.35.

Stavros

10-21-2016, 06:19 PM

In the murky pre-Brexit world in which we live, the options are beginning to narrow as the Government says a 'hard brexit' -meaning an exit from the EU with no access to the Single Market- is more likely than a 'soft Brexit', something EU politicians appear also to confirm.

Nevertheless, there are those in the Conservative Party, such as John Redwood MP, who welcome to the fall in the value of the pound -but did not recommend before July 2016 that the Chancellor devalue Sterling by 17%- and while the markets appear to be robust- even the FTSE 250 which fell dramatically in July (the 250 is the index of mostly British-based firms rather than the multi-nationals who make up most of the FTSE 100); there are other signs that Brexit nerves are having a negative effect:

1) the Russian VTB Bank is to re-locate from London to somewhere else in Europe -Paris, Frankfurt or Vienna; other bankers have also begun to look at their options:
Several US banking executives told a conference in London on Tuesday that without clarity on whether the UK will keep access to the single market, they may start moving people out of London early next year. “How do we and when do we start making decisions … knowing the plan is ready to go … it could be in the first quarter of 2017,” said James Bardrick, head of UK for Citigroup.
https://www.ft.com/content/94667d58-8b5c-11e6-8aa5-f79f5696c731

2) Academics in UK universities have already begun to feel the impact of Brexit in terms of delayed funding applications, and concerns that if the UK does not remain in the Single Market it will not be able to meet the stipulations for EU-wide research (such as the Euro 2020 project), with additional concerns over the longer term fate of EU nationals teaching in UK institutions-
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jul/12/uk-scientists-dropped-from-eu-projects-because-of-post-brexit-funding-fears
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/25/brexit-may-force-15-of-staff-at-uk-universities-to-leave-warns-group

3) Budget airlines EasyJet and Ryanair have both issued profit warnings as the fall in the value of Sterling and acts of terrorism (Egypt, in Easyjet's case) have hit the firms in terms of sales and revenue; it remains to be seen if the fall in the value of the pound making foreign holidays more expensive will deplete the amount of budget airline sales compared to previous years, Eurostar will be increasing train capacity but over the next year will also be changing its schedule to cut the number of trips per day.
Easyjet is also applying to operate from another European country, and while it claims it has no plans to re-locate from its headquarters in Luton, the option is seen as a Brexit manoeuver which could see precisely that move if the terms of the UK's exit from the EU affect the company's future.
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ryanair-profit-warning-heralds-perfect-storm-for-tourism-as-sterling-slumps-35144183.html
http://www.wsj.com/articles/easyjet-earnings-strained-by-brexit-terror-attacks-1475735440
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/easyjet-hq-move-eu-referendum-brexit-passporting-a7113301.html

4) Last but by no means least, the motor manufacturer Nissan will make a decision next month (November) on whether or not to make the latest model of its Qashqai car at the Sunderland plant. 80% of the vehicles made in Sunderland are exported, and executives are looking at their options post Brexit, as the Chief Executive stated: "We're not asking for any advantage [from the British government], but we don't want to lose any competitiveness no matter what the discussions." Nissan employs 7,000 people in Sunderland. A decision not to go ahead with the new Qashqai model in Sunderland would, I think, be a major blow to British industry and the confidence investors have in the UK over the next 2-5 years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-37726493

Stavros

10-23-2016, 10:34 AM

In addition to my post above, today's Observer/Guardian offers a provocative article that has generated much heat, if not light, claiming-

Britain’s biggest banks are preparing to relocate out of the UK in the first few months of 2017 amid growing fears over the impending Brexit negotiations, while smaller banks are making plans to get out before Christmas.

The dramatic claim is made in the Observer (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/22/brexit-threat-to-british-banks) by the chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association (https://www.bba.org.uk/), Anthony Browne, who warns “the public and political debate at the moment is taking us in the wrong direction”.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/22/leading-banks-set-to-pull-out-of-brexit-uk

martin48

10-23-2016, 03:10 PM

Stravros - you should stop reading real newspapers like the Guardian and read the Mail and the Express :)

holzz

10-23-2016, 06:39 PM

Stavros

10-23-2016, 09:43 PM

even as a child of immigrants to our country, i don't get how polish or czech people are moaning. most do hard work, but not all immigrants do. we should be more selective of who does come in, only select people who share similar values. there's a reason why blacks and Indians of immigrants groups do the best in the UK, not Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, different cultures and religions.

In my Eden, the person who dislikes Bellini has the good manners not to get born (Auden)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_Pakistanis#Academia_and_education

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_Bangladeshis#Business_and_finance

http://bbpower-inspiration.com/

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/business/2016/05/why-britain-s-bangladeshis-are-so-successful

Stavros

11-03-2016, 02:48 PM

A week is a long time in politics. Since my last post Nissan have committed themselves to build the new model Qashqai at their plant in Sunderland, a boost for the motor industry but one that has come with bells and whistles provided by the tax-payer in the form of subsidies, although the government, of course is not calling them that. If the UK leaves the EU any tariffs imposed on British made goods may be met by the tax-payer to maintain car production, though one doubts the steel industry will also be subsidised.

This morning -Thursday 3rd November- the High Court has judged that the Government cannot invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin the UK's exit from the European Union without Parliament's approval. The Government claimed the Referendum gave it the authority to use the 'Royal Prerogative' to enact a constitutional change without reference to Parliament, the Court disagreed. This (I think) is the key passage in the judgement-

The most fundamental rule of the UK’s constitution is that Parliament is sovereign and can make and unmake any law it chooses. As an aspect of the sovereignty of Parliament it has been established for hundreds of years that the Crown – i.e. the Government of the day – cannot by exercise of prerogative powers override legislation enacted by Parliament. This principle is of critical importance and sets the context for the general rule on which the Government seeks to rely – that normally the conduct of international relations and the making and unmaking of treaties are taken to be matters falling within the scope of the Crown’s prerogative powers.
That general rule exists precisely because the exercise of such prerogative powers has no effect on domestic law, including as laid down by Parliament in legislation...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2016/nov/03/article-50-high-court-ruling-high-court-set-to-rule-on-whether-mps-should-vote-on-triggering-article-50-politics-live?page=with:block-581b1720e4b07ceadb3a1fb5#liveblog-navigation

*For example the Govt doesn't need Parliamentary approval to sever diplomatic relations with a state (as happened in 1986 when the UK severed diplomatic relations with Syria).

Obviously the Govt will appeal, and I expect it to lose again because the case for Parliamentary approval is in my frail opinion unassailable. But if it does fail, this means that not only will Parliament have to vote on a Bill that gives some detail as to what the Exit negotiating terms will be, it will take some time for the Bill to pass through Parliament and will give decisive powers to the unelected House of Lords, which would put the UK in the amusing situation where a vote which the Brexit camp said would take powers back from an unelected European Commission could be scuppered by an unelected House of Lords right here in our own Parliament. Or this could just be an exercise in 'smoke and mirrors' whereby much gets said, words printed, opinions challenged, amendments made -but what you see: Brexit, is what you get. And anyway most of it will be decided by the negotiating teams in the EU.

Or we could re-assert the primary of Parliament and stop holding 'advisory' referendums on divisive subjects and transforming them into policy, but as the leader of the Labour Party and Chief Weasel, Jeremy Corbyn is committed to taking the UK out of the EU, as he always has been, I expect much temper and tedious debate, with the prospect that the exit may take longer than expected but happen in its own messy way.

flabbybody

11-03-2016, 03:23 PM

still digesting this AM development after a long night of World Series viewing.
I agree the government appeal will likely fail. It'll be facinating to see the thing play out in Parliament next year. In the states, they made a big deal about a lot of Leave folks having immediate buyers remorse. Now they'll actually get the chance.
can't wait to hear from Nigel and Bojo

peejaye

11-03-2016, 03:50 PM

Stavros

11-03-2016, 09:06 PM

As usual Stavros, a very informative piece. You & I know; a large number of influential people, mainly wealthy, Politicians and other "hangers -on" have done their best to derail the UK's departure from the Brexit result, refuse to accept democracy. I know we differ on this subject but does all this mean there is a possibility this country will not be leaving the EU after all? This may result in serious unrest and possible anarchy on our streets, understandably so as people feel so strongly about it. Look at voter turn out!
I happen to agree; Cameron was a total fool in holding a referendum but it was so typical of him being so distant from ordinary working people in this country! What's done is done.

A realist will argue that the opportunity to derail Brexit has been given to Parliament, but that it is unlikely to happen, not least because the main opponents, the Scottish National Party need all of the Labour Party to vote with them together with a number of Tories, but Labour is in disarray and many Labour MPs have always wanted out of the EU anyway. May could calculate that in these extraordinary times we need a new election to re-affirm Brexit, which I would expect her to win with an increased majority at the expense of Labour, with incidentally, the Tories winning at least 5 seats in Scotland owing to Ruth Davidson's stellar impact on that country and indeed the party.

What today's judgement has done is to take control of the timetable away from the government and hand it back to Parliament. The debate on Brexit will in effect be a re-run of the arguments we have heard before and since the referendum, with the key issue being access to the Single Market. In theory, Parliament could therefore attach conditions to Article 50 so that once invoked, the understanding would be that the British will press for a 'modified' Brexit which severs formal legal and institutional relations, while retaining access to all or part of the Single Market, yet European Ministers of various countries have already said they would oppose compromises of this kind just to keep the UK in touch at some level.
There could also be a measure designed to protect the combined academic and industrial research and development programmes that are at risk if the UK leaves the Single Market, as well as the Erasmus programme that allows student exchanges across the EU.

But again, the fundamental problem is that the EU has indicated it does not want a pick 'n mix solution but a simple In or Out across the board, and as that is what most of the Brexit team in the UK want, I fear that whatever package the British take to the negotiating table the end result will be a 'hard Brexit' if only to prevent other EU member states extracting special privileges -we should always factor in what the EU wants as well as what the UK wants.

In the meantime, we face daily debates on what Brexit means, as if the public were not weary of it already, and markets will rise and fall as one issue dominates another. At least Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has captured the spirit of this voyage on which we are embarked, having said in a speech at an awards ceremony yesterday that the UK will make 'a titanic success of Brexit'...

holzz

11-03-2016, 11:10 PM

this high court bollocks.

parliament is sovereign.

no court can strike down parliament's actions.

acccept we remainers LOST and get over it!!!

flabbybody

11-04-2016, 02:32 AM

this high court bollocks.

parliament is sovereign.

no court can strike down parliament's actions.

acccept we remainers LOST and get over it!!!
That's essentially what the court decided...the sovereignty of parliament.
begs the question... has the court made the BREXIT referendum irrelevant ?

broncofan

11-04-2016, 02:48 AM

That's essentially what the court decided...the sovereignty of parliament.
begs the question... has the court made the BREXIT referendum irrelevant ?
Maybe not if mps vote brexit out of respect for the referendum even if they wouldn't in their own wisdom. That's all I got...that was also my understanding of the court decision as well so I'm glad you said it.

flabbybody

11-04-2016, 06:24 AM

Stavros said it way before the court ruling. The referendum is not legally binding. An Article 50 trigger is strictly a parliamentary function.

Stavros

11-04-2016, 09:39 AM

Stavros said it way before the court ruling. The referendum is not legally binding. An Article 50 trigger is strictly a parliamentary function.

Exactly, because unless the act authorising the referendum states that the result will be binding on the government (as was the case in 2011 with the Referendum on proportional representation), the existing law on referendums assumes them to be advisory only. This is the key element in the High Court's decision. To be fair to those who think it is wrong, the link below argues that the Government does have the right to invoke Article 50 without Parliamentary approval but claims this is because the Conservative Party stated in its election Manifesto in 2015-

“We believe in letting the people decide: so we will hold an in-out referendum on our membership of the EU before the end of 2017.”
It should be noted that the election promise was to “let the people decide”. It was not a promise to hold an advisory referendum, with the final decision being left to Parliament.
http://www.lawyersforbritain.org/referendum-binding.shtml

-But this cannot be right, first because manifesto commitments have no force in law; and second it does not recognise what a referendum is in law and uses politics to subvert both the law and the will of Parliament.

Stavros

12-15-2016, 06:53 PM

As 2016 draws to a close there are still more questions than answers on the mechanisms which will result in the UK leaving the European Union. I hope the following is a clear and accurate account and timetable of the situation as it is today.
The timetable is accurate as far as I know, but below I have outlined some key issues, some of which may prevent the Govt from invoking Article 50 by the end of May, the status of Scotland being the key obstacle to this.

Timetable

January 2017 Supreme Court judgement on the Appeal against the decision to refer Article 50 to Parliament.
February-March 2017 Article 50 Bill debated in Parliament.
March 15 2017 General Election in the Netherlands -the leader of the Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders is committed to taking the Netherlands out of the EU.
March 2017 By the end of this month the Government of the UK will invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union.
April 2017 Negotiations between the UK and the EU begin. The Treaty on European Union allows a two-year period of negotiations to take place before a formal exit takes effect.
April 23 2017 -first round of the General Election in France. Leader of the Front National, Marine le Pen is committed to taking France out of the EU.
May 7 2017 -second round of the Presidential vote will decide who becomes President of France.
August-October 2017 General Election in Germany (date to be confirmed, August the earliest possible, but must be concluded by the end of October).

Issues and Obstacles

-The Prime Minister, Theresa May is committed to invoking Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (Lisbon, 2007).

-The intention of the UK Government to invoke Article 50 without reference to Parliament was based on an interpretation of the Royal Prerogative which allows the Government to amend treaties without reference to Parliament. This has been challenged in the Courts, and in November 2016 the Supreme Court ruled that the Government cannot exercise this power, and that Parliament alone can authorise the invocation of Article 50. The Government has appealed against this decision, and the Supreme Court will issue its judgement on the appeal in January 2017.

-Theresa May has thus proposed a brief Bill to be passed within two weeks in January if the Government is defeated in the Supreme Court. The assumption is that MPs will not vote against the referendum result, and indications that only a few Conservative and Labour rebels, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats will vote against suggest that Parliament will approve the invocation of Article 50.

-However, there is a legal instrument which could see the Supreme Court refer the invocation of Article 50 to the European Union Court of Justice [EUCJ] under Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union which gives the EUCJ the authority to offer preliminary judgement on the legal decisions made by member states on Treaty matters. However, this is not an obligation on the part of the British government, and would only be seen as a delaying mechanism as it would not change the political decision to leave the EU.

-Further complications arise with regard to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Included in the Scotland Act of 1998 where the 'Sewel Convention' states that
“it is recognised that the parliament of the United Kingdom will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament”
In practice this means the Scottish Parliament passing a formal Legislative Consent Motion but in reality because Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU it may vote on but not pass the required Legislative Consent Motion. This will probably delay the invocation of Article 50.
It has been argued Northern Ireland does not have the protection of the Legislative Consent Motion mechanism, and while it does not exist in Wales it is likely to be included in the Wales Bill that is making its way through Parliament.

-Currently, the EU position is divided between the Council of Ministers in Brussels, and the European Parliament in Strasbourg. In Brussels, the Council of Ministers began consultations with the 27 member states on Friday 15th December 2016, while in Strasbourg Guy Verhofstadt has been designated the Parliamentary leader on Article 50 negotiations. As a result there is some confusion as to who in the EU has the most power, but it is generally accepted that Article 50 will also have to be subjected to a vote by the European Parliament, with the assumption that the Parliament will vote to acknowledge and confirm the desire of the UK to leave the EU.

-The key issues therefore now revolve around the extent to which votes in the Parliament of the UK and the European Parliament will be based on a general principle alone, or be shaped around a group of propositions that determine the relationship the UK will have with the EU after it leaves, crucially with regard to the UK's access to the Single Market.

-The position of the UK Government is that Article 50 must be invoked first, and negotiations subsequent to that deal with issues such as access to the Single Market etc; others want what they see as crucial issues to be clarified before the vote is sought so that both sides know what they are voting for.

-The opposition want Parliament to include specific provisions in the Article 50 Act, the Government wants a free hand to negotiate and thus only include them in the Great Repeal Bill which it is assumed will follow the final agreement of the EU on the UK's exit from the EU and thus determine the precise arrangements.

-David Davis has said the UK could be 'out of the EU' by the end of 2018, but most experts expect negotiations on the details of the UK's exit to last 10 years.

A clear presentation of the legal arguments can be found here-
https://fullfact.org/law/brexit-supreme-court-arguments/

Stavros

12-15-2016, 07:00 PM

As presently constituted, this is the EU-
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Stavros

12-15-2016, 07:01 PM

As presently constituted, this is the EU- (warning- taken from the Daily Express, hence the loaded comments in the box below the map).

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Stavros

12-16-2016, 06:31 AM

-Currently, the EU position is divided between the Council of Ministers in Brussels, and the European Parliament in Strasbourg. In Brussels, the Council of Ministers began consultations with the 27 member states on Friday 15th December 2016, while in Strasbourg Guy Verhofstadt has been designated the Parliamentary leader on Article 50 negotiations. As a result there is some confusion as to who in the EU has the most power, but it is generally accepted that Article 50 will also have to be subjected to a vote by the European Parliament, with the assumption that the Parliament will vote to acknowledge and confirm the desire of the UK to leave the EU.

To clarify, Michael Barnier has been appointed by the European Commission to represent the EU in negotiations with the UK on Brexit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37542204

flabbybody

01-04-2017, 07:04 AM

We're finding out today the ambassador to the EU resigned...bit of a shocker. This is the guy Farage called the ultimate insider. So much for soft Brexit
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/04/quote-sir-ivan-rogers-resignation-eu-brexit-email-in-full

Stavros

01-11-2017, 11:51 PM

I think the problem is that most of the senior civil servants in Whitehall have served in some capacity in the EU, and for the militants, having sat in an office in Brussels or Strasbourg is proof they cannot be trusted to negotiate the exit they want. The problem is that the Government doesn't really have a corps of experienced negotiators that would satisfy the militants, and if they are satisfied with Rogers' exit it is also because of his relationship with the demon, Cameron. In any case, it appears that Theresa May now believes it will not be possible for the UK to negotiate a compromise on the Single Market, a key issue for the militants on both sides.

One should also note, given my previous more general post above, that in France, Marine le Pen has begun to shift the goalposts on her own version of Brexit, known as Frexit (one is tempted to say Frigide sur Frexit). If there is a referendum asking the French if they want to leave the EU it may not include leaving the Euro at the same time, a confusing policy which is aimed at placating those French with savings who fear their value would be depreciated if France left the Euro and revived the Franc. Le Pen is suggesting a dual Franc/Euro system but in doing so has weakened her cause and opened up the kind of divisions in the Front National we have seen in the Conservative Party over 'hard and soft Brexit'. In any case barely 33% of the French polled want France to leave the EU.
For more confusion-
http://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-calls-for-return-to-ecu-style-currency-after-frexit/
https://politicalscrapbook.net/2017/01/marine-le-pen-u-turns-on-leaving-the-eu-and-ditching-the-euro/

flabbybody

01-16-2017, 04:02 AM

Please update us on Madam PM's Brexit speech this Tuesday
Across the pond we're a little preoccupied with Friday's inauguration.
God save us all

Stavros

01-17-2017, 05:28 PM

Theresa May has delivered her speech on the UK's exit from the EU, based around a 12-point plan which highlights these issues:

Provide certainty about the process of leaving the EU
Control of our own laws
Strengthen the Union between the four nations of the United Kingdom
Maintain the Common Travel Area with Ireland
Brexit must mean control of the number of people who come to Britain from Europe
Rights for EU nationals in Britain and British nationals in the EU
Protect workers' rights
Free trade with European markets through a free trade agreement
New trade agreements with other countries
The best place for science and innovation
Co-operation in the fight against crime and terrorism
A smooth, orderly Brexit

In addition, she confirmed that the Brexit deal will be presented to Parliament for a vote, and when asked after the speech, was confident that MPs and the Lords would not vote against it.

May's primary aim was to present Brexit as a positive step forward for the UK, one that would allow it to retain its links to the EU with regard to trade, investment, security and settlement rights for EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU. She pressed the right buttons on repatriating law-making to Westminster (which it never lost anyway as Parliament could always veto EU laws), reducing EU immigration into the UK, and ending the substantial annual payments to the EU as part of the membership deal. The relief from the constraints on negotiating separate trade deals would thus re-configure the UK as a 'global economy', in spite of the fact that we already are, and have substantial trade arrangements across the world.

The main problem is that the negotiations have not begun and that Mrs May indicated that in reality the 'half-in half-out' arrangement that some have called for, which she says is not on the table, was right there in her speech.
She wants the UK to leave the Single Market, but wants to re-negotiate access to it.
She wants the UK to leave the Customs Union, but also wants the UK to negotiate tariff free deals in the Customs Union on certain (unspecified) aspects of trade.
She wants the UK to retain links in research & development in education but ignores a requirement of most EU R&D projects that they adhere to the free movement of people and other EU rules.
She says the UK will not longer be paying billions of pounds a year into the EU, but also said the UK would make financial contribution to projects agreed with the EU on trade, R&D, security and intelligence and so on.

Mrs May thus presented in advance of the negotiations what the UK would like to get out of the deal, rather than what it insists is non-negotiable, though she did warn that no deal would be preferable to a bad deal, and that it would be 'calamitous' for the EU to punish the UK for leaving by making access to the Single Market difficult or impossible. This clearly sets a challenge for Michel Barnier and his team in the EU, not least because May also wants a swift set of negotiations to ensure most if not all issues are ready to go within the two-year time-frame set for the talks.

She made many references to 'free trade', a reflection of the view of those who see the EU as an obstacle to free trade globally, yet seems committed to inter-state trading negotiations, referring to the potential of the USA as a trading partner. Yet she also knows how difficult and time-consuming it was for Canada and the EU to reach a trade agreement, not to mention TTIP and TPP both of which appear to be dead in the water.

So on the one hand, we have a clearer idea of what the UK government wants, but no idea what the EU will offer, and how the compromise will look when negotiations are concluded. It was, incidentally, a good speech, and shows May is in command of the brief. But putting the UK's case before the EU and the world is only one part of the play, the rest is yet to come.

I guess you could sum up her speech thus: always look on the bright side of life...

The full text of the speech (+ video) can be found here-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/17/theresa-mays-brexit-speech-full/

rodinuk

01-24-2017, 02:31 PM

Stavros

01-24-2017, 03:53 PM

SCOREBOARD:
Theresa May's Combined Top Team 3 - 8 Supreme Court XI
Devolved Administrations also lost their match after being kicked into touch. There may not be dancing in the streets of Glasgow/Cardiff tonight..

A spokesperson for the SNP on Radio 4's The World at One said they have 50 amendments to table to the Bill when the government presents it to the Commons later this week. They won't get 50 debated, but it may constitute the only substantial opposition to the Bill given Corbyn has signalled Labour will not oppose it.

flabbybody

01-24-2017, 06:46 PM

Stavros

01-24-2017, 09:04 PM

May is meeting Trump at White House Friday. I'm wondering if she's being politically savvy by laying down with the devil. Will a robust May-Trump relationship add to her prestige at home?
And does anyone know if Farage will be a accompaning her? I'm sure Nigel's been given a free private suite at the Trump hotel so he and POTUS can hang together. I'm sure Trump will insist he's appointed ambassador in exchange for a plum trade deal.

Farage is desperate to be an important man, having finally ceded the leadership of UKIP to others in a party he says is full of 'low-grade people'. Mindful of the fact he is going to lose his 93,000 Euros a year salary (but not his EU pension), the man needs money and the power he has never been able to obtain in the UK. From the start this pompous loser has bragged about his links to Trump, claimed he can be a 'bridge' between the US President and the government of the UK, because like Trump's people Farage sees career diplomats as 'part of the problem' of bureaucratic inefficiency and hostility to change. Energised by the 'can-do' businessman in DC, Farage claims the US is already on the verge of offering the UK a trade deal, even though he knows it would be a violation of EU rules, and knows that May is not going to go solo given the difficulties she will have once Article 50 negotiations start. In any case, Cabinet Ministers have been told not to speak to Farage, who is now some sort of loud mouth on Fox News.

What Theresa May will be most concerned about is the existing trade between the US and the UK compared to trade with the EU. Using figures from 2014 with data from 2015 the UK sells goods and services to the EU worth around £220 billion, it imports from the EU goods and services worth around £290 billion using UK data or £360 billion using EU data
In contrast, the UK exports goods and services to the USA are worth £88 billion, and imports roughly £52 billion. This makes the USA the UK's largest trading partner outside the EU. May will be most concerned to protect UK-US trade but also to register the view that tariff walls would damage both sides, and rather obviously place the UK in a vulnerable position as the UK economy will shrink as Brexit takes hold (sources for figures in the links below).

From this point of view, Trump could make all the usual vacuous noises about the 'special relationship', polish the bust of the Anglo-American bigot and windbag Churchill in his Oval Office, waffle on about his love of the UK (or is it Scotland, a country that doesn't love him), but the bottom line could be a businessman salivating over the prospect of a weakened UK economy desperate for US investments, with the irony that if the UK allows it to happen, the relationship could be even more unequal than the UK-EU relationship is alleged to have been. How this squares with Trump's decree 'Buy American, hire American' is anyone's guess. The Independent put it quite well a few days ago-

A hasty US-UK deal could mean a raft of compromises for Britain, involving a diverse array of industries and rules, from food and farming through to drug production and environmental legislation.
For example, in the UK, standards and regulations in the food industry are tightly controlled. But a free trade deal allowing US food into the UK market would seriously undermine those standards and would throw UK farmers into direct competition with American producers.
Likewise, an amalgamation of UK and US drug markets could mean the current low prices for pharmaceuticals in Britain could come to an end.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nigel-farage-donald-trump-sign-us-uk-trade-deal-90-days-speed-up-brexit-latest-eu-european-union-a7536816.html

Data on trade can be found here-
https://fullfact.org/europe/uk-eu-trade/
http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/gbr/
http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-perspectives-2016-trade-with-the-eu-and-beyond/

Stavros

01-26-2017, 05:56 PM

The 'Brexit Bill' has been published -

991149

flabbybody

01-27-2017, 02:45 AM

flabbybody

01-27-2017, 07:55 AM

Stavros

01-27-2017, 10:38 AM

Question for the board.
The PM referred to her county as The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Notthern Ireland. Why does N Ireland get separate mention as opposed to say, Scotland. Is there a Southern Ireland? Are they British?
POTUS might not like the confusion. Most Americans basically call you guys England.

Great Britain, in geographical terms, is the large island which contains England, Scotland and Wales, but not, for example, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands. Northern Ireland is therefore not geographically attached to Britain, but as part of the island of Ireland comes within the geographical term, the British Isles, which includes the islands off the coast of mainland Europe that are under the jurisdiction of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The official name of the state, 'the United Kingdom' dates from 1707 and the Act of Union between England and Scotland (Theresa May is leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party), but in 1801 became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, indeed some Irish historians argue the 'long war' of independence from Britain began as a result of the hostile reaction in Ireland to the merger between the two, the designation ending with Irish independence in 1922.

Consider the difference between America and the United States of America. Literally speaking, a Brazilian, a Canadian and a Colombian could all claim to be American, yet most of the time we think of Americans as being citizens of the USA.

Merging 'English' with the UK is bad form, ask any Scot! And just what is it that Trump loves, Scotland or England? Or rather, if he had to choose...

Stavros

01-27-2017, 11:44 AM

I listened to May's Philadelphia address in my car driving home. It was masterful. She praised "the new emboldened America". Lots of kiss-ass references to Trump and the special historical US-UK relationship.
Can she come home with any concrete trade deal from Trump? No way, but it's all about optics and she checked the required boxes with this speech. She'll be hailed as the next Thatcher when she gets back. Hope she delivers

In fact Theresa May only mentioned Trump twice, to acknowledge his victory and to look forward to discussing policy with him. On policies she actually highlighted the differences not just between the UK and the Trump administration but also between the Republican Party and Trump, which is one reason the speech was well received.

For example
--she made a point of endorsing NATO where Trump has questioned it
--she appealed to a shared commitment to an international role in meeting our responsibilities to our friends and allies, champion the international cooperation and partnerships that project our values around the world, and continue to act as one of the strongest and most forceful advocates for business, free markets and free trade anywhere around the globe -where Trump has put 'America First'.
--Where Trump has criticized Globalization and China, May says The rise of the Asian economies – China yes, but democratic allies like India too – is hugely welcome. Billions are being lifted out of poverty and new markets for our industries are opening up.
--Where Trump has a soft position on Russia (the noise is that Trump will lift US sanctions on Russia this weekend) -May is unequivocal: But we should engage with Russia from a position of strength. And we should build the relationships, systems and processes that make cooperation more likely than conflict – and that, particularly after the illegal annexation of Crimea, give assurance to Russia’s neighbouring states that their security is not in question. We should not jeopardise the freedoms that President Reagan and Mrs Thatcher brought to Eastern Europe by accepting President Putin’s claim that it is now in his sphere of influence.
--Where Trump has called the nuclear deal with Iran 'the worst deal in history' May rebukes him with: The nuclear deal with Iran was controversial. But it has neutralised the possibility of the Iranians acquiring nuclear weapons for more than a decade....[I] was vitally important for regional security.
--Where Trump has raised doubts about the USA's commitment to the UN, May says I have encouraged Antonio Guterres, the new UN Secretary General, to pursue an ambitious reform programme, focusing the United Nations on its core functions of peacekeeping, conflict prevention and resolution
--May deals with the contradiction between 'Buy American, Hire American' and a trade deal with the US by arguing the deal must: demonstrate to those who feel locked out and left behind that free markets, free economies and free trade can deliver the brighter future they need. And it can maintain – indeed it can build – support for the rules-based international system on which the stability of our world continues to rely.

Some of the things May said were crowd pleasing, but wrong, but intended to emphasize the British view that there is a 'Special Relationship' which many Americans do not recognize in the same way.

It was evident in the remark on the US-UK partnership being vital in the Cold War, but which by excluding the crucial role of West Germany may have been a subtle dig at Obama who had a warmer relationship with Angela Merkel than David Cameron, but is historically wrong. She was also wrong to claim that only the US and the UK meet the requirement to fund NATO with 2% of GDP as this is also met by Poland, Estonia and Greece. It should also be noted that NATO members like Iceland don't have a standing army and with such a small population 2% of GDP is for them an unrealistic figure -it spends around 0.1% on defence.

May took sides with the US and Israel against the rights the Palestinians have to live independently in the land they have owned and farmed for thousands of years, misleading her audience with references to Israel as a democracy, which it might be in Israel, whereas it is a brutal, and illegal military dictatorship in Occupied Palestine. May did not refer to the 'two-state solution' which has been the basis of US and UK policy since the Oslo Accords of 1993 -the peace signed by Yitzhak Shamir but trashed by Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu- but as the editorial in the Financial Times yesterday (26th January 2017) pointed out Trump is playing a dangerous game by changing policy and allying himself with the violent extremists in Netanyahu's government.

One also notes that May has said Iran's ambitions in the Middle East need to be curtailed, but made not one mention of Saudi Arabia as the GHQ of international terrorism or its savage, unwinnable war in the Yemen.

The point is that May made many positive references to Trump's idol, Ronald Reagan, but did so mostly to draw out the differences between the two men, in terms of both style and content. Whether Trump can match Reagan's diplomacy remains to be seen, but I can't see May and Trump agreeing on a range of issues other than the need for a trade deal, where the anxiety in the UK is that we should not deal with the US at any price, given that our regulations on food and product quality, on health and other aspects of business are superior to the USA.

But again, the hollow bombast of 'Buy American, Hire American' was exposed by Joachim Fels, also in yesterday's FT where he argues it is Europe that is in a better and stronger position on trade than the USA -but does this also mean the UK?- because the Euro is weaker than the dollar making European imports attractive to US consumers, thus:
"Switching demand from foreign goods could work eventually, but in the near term there is not quality and capacity in US manufacturing to fill the gap".

Whether or not the UK can fill that gap, the UK is in a stronger position with a weaker pound, but for how long can the UK take advantage of demand in the US, and will the 'Buy American, Hire American' ever mean anything in real terms? In other words, if there is a deal to be made, who stands to benefit most from it? In the long term, the UK will be weaker outside the EU, and at the moment is desperate for deeper trade ties with the US.

The full text of May's speech can be found here-
http://uk.businessinsider.com/full-text-theresa-mays-speech-to-the-republican-congress-of-tomorrow-conference-2017-1?r=US&IR=T

Laphroaig

01-27-2017, 05:21 PM

Merging 'English' with the UK is bad form, ask any Scot! And just what is it that Trump loves, Scotland or England? Or rather, if he had to choose...

Note I'm going on memory and haven't checked my facts, but I believe that Trump claims Scottish ancestry somewhere in his linage. Of course, we all know that what Trump claims and the actual facts are often two very different things.

However, after his spat with Alex Salmond, a few years ago, over plans to build an offshore windfarm, "spoiling" the views from his golf course in Aberdeenshire, I'm half expecting a US Navy warship to be permanently stationed in the North Sea as a deterent to developments...

Stavros

02-02-2017, 06:54 AM

Last night -1st February 2017- the House of Commons voted to begin the process of leaving the EU, giving the Government the authority to invoke Article 50. As pugnacious Laura Kuenssberg -the BBC journalist who rattled Donald Trump in the May-Trump press conference in Washington DC- has put it:

After decades of debate, years of acrimony over the issue in the Conservative Party, months of brutal brinksmanship in Westminster, and hours of debate this week, MPs have just approved the very first step in the process of Britain leaving the European Union.

There are many hurdles ahead, probably thousands of hours of debate here, years of negotiations for Theresa May with our friends and rivals around the EU, as she seeks a deal - and possibly as long as a decade of administrative adjustments, as the country extricates itself from the EU.
On a wet Wednesday, the debate didn't feel epoch-making, but think for a moment about what has just happened.
MPs, most of whom wanted to stay in the EU, have just agreed that we are off.

The full article is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38830552

Stavros

02-23-2017, 08:05 PM

If one of the consequences of Brexit is a closer 'relationship' between the UK and the USA, or as some see it a growing dependency by the UK on US trade (how this fits with 'Buy American, Hire American I don't know), the Telegraph today opens up a whole new perspective with the proposal by the Royal Commonwealth Society to open a branch in the USA -apparently one of Nigel Farage's 'bright ideas' (an oxymoron if ever there was one)- a move that could presage the USA becoming a full member of the Commonwealth of Nations, formerly know as the British Commonwealth.

The way I see it, if Donald Trump discredits the office of President, you could scrap it, and as a full member of the Commonwealth of Nations -and you were at one time fully integrated into the Empire- re-establish the monarch as your head of state -currently Her Most Noble and Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, next in line King Charles III-, and appoint a Prime Minister from Congress. And we won't even make you pay taxes to do it.
Just give us a fat wedge of your market opportunities...oh, and the flag will have to go. Embrace the change.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/23/donald-trumps-love-royal-family-may-see-united-states-join-commonwealth/

filghy2

02-24-2017, 02:20 AM

Note I'm going on memory and haven't checked my facts, but I believe that Trump claims Scottish ancestry somewhere in his linage. Of course, we all know that what Trump claims and the actual facts are often two very different things.

However, after his spat with Alex Salmond, a few years ago, over plans to build an offshore windfarm, "spoiling" the views from his golf course in Aberdeenshire, I'm half expecting a US Navy warship to be permanently stationed in the North Sea as a deterent to developments...

I've been reading about this. Trump's mother was born in Scotland. He made a big deal of this when he was seeking approval for the golf course development, although he did undermine himself a bit by referring to her as Scotch rather than Scottish.

Ironically, Trump's ancestors were probably poor farmers forced off their lands during the clearances in the 19th century. When some small landowners refused to sell land he wanted for his project, Trump pushed for the local council to use compulsory acquisition powers. He didn't get his way, but they were subjected to a full-on Trump bullying campaign.

Stavros

02-24-2017, 07:28 AM

Two by-elections were held in the UK yesterday, and in the case of one of them, Stoke-on-Trent, the dominating factor was the potential for UKIP to defeat Labour, to register the so-called 'Populist' surge against established parties, and because the party leader Paul Nuttall was contesting the seat. Stoke has returned a Labour MP since 1950 and last night there was no change, with Labour winning the seat and Nuttall coming second but on a low voter turn-out of 36.7%.

The inquest will no doubt focus on the lies told by Nuttall, hardly surprising as UKIP is a party of liars and freaks unfit for public office. Nuttall registered an address in Stoke in which he did not live; he claimed on LinkedIn to have a PhD, but he doesn't. He claimed to be on the Board of the North-West Training Council -a lie, and he claimed to have played football for Tranmere Rovers, which was news to the club. Most damaging of all for this lad from Bootle in Liverpool is the claim he made only recently that as a 12 year old he was at the Hillsborough football ground in 1989 where 96 people died. He may be telling the truth about this, but it is either odd that at no point in the last 20 odd years did Nuttall campaign for justice for the victims of Hillsborough, or it could be that in UKIP's case the party regarded, and still regards Liverpool as a lost cause.

The question thus remains -what is UKIP for? It's major issue, indeed it's only issue was leaving the EU, but as both Labour and the Conservative Parties are working for Brexit, voters did not need to vote for UKIP. One hopes his wretched group of losers will get the message and disappear into the sunset.

In the other by-election, Labour lost the seat of Copeland -created in 1983 it succeeded Whitehaven, both returning Labour MPs since 1935, until last night, when they chose the Conservative candidate on a voter turn-out of 51.27%. 10,000 people in the constituency work at the nuclear energy plant nearby at Sellafield, and with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn opposed to nuclear weapons, and unable to control his own party, this defeat will deepen the wounds and emphasize the extent to which the Conservative Party is the dominant force in English politics.

Thus for Brexit, no change; but for the 'populist' agenda a defeat, and one hopes the sign of defeats to come.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39064149

martin48

02-24-2017, 04:46 PM

Demise of UKIP - as you say no purpose left. The Tories are bashing immigrants and rushing for a hard Brexit. The Conservative Party has become the new UKIP. Copland - even sadder result for Labour. Wha was Corbyn's response "people feel let down by the political establishment." So let down they voted for them instead of Labour.

Stavros

05-04-2017, 02:30 PM

Michel Barnier, the chief Brexit negotiator for the EU has laid out a clear plan and timetable for the first round of talks which are expected to hold their first meeting in June. The three key issues concern
1) the status of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU;
2) the UK's binding commitments to the EU budget throughout the period of negotiations and beyond, depending on any transitional arrangements that are made; and
3) the opening of discussion on the future of trade.
Barnier expects this round of negotiations to be concluded by October 2018.

A key element, on trade, underlines the extent to which the EU believes that leaving by one door will not enable the UK to re-enter by another on the same terms:

The main principle that will underpin this negotiation is that whatever deal is granted to the U.K, it will be worse than being a member state.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/barnier-outlines-three-key-stages-brexit-negotiations/

Stavros

05-19-2017, 04:53 PM

Further to my post above, The Guardian reports today that Michel Barnier has pencilled in June 19th 2017 for the start of negotiations between the EU and the UK on the implementation of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. It is believed he wants to hold four one-week sessions of negotiations:

The EU wants negotiations to be divided into four-week cycles, each focused on a key issue. Week one would involve political preparation, followed by a week where documents would be disclosed by both sides.

The third week would see Barnier and the Brexit secretary sitting down to talk, mainly in Brussels but also, potentially, in London. In the final week, Barnier would report on the results of the negotiations to the 27 member states and the European parliament.
The EU’s negotiator wants to reach agreement on citizens’ rights, the UK’s divorce bill and on the border of Ireland in a first phase of talks he hopes will be concluded by the end of 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/19/brexit-uk-eu-talks-start-19-june

peejaye

05-19-2017, 05:40 PM

Personally I find all this euphoria about Br-exit a bit overwhelming! All I can say is we can't get a "good" deal as it's in the EU's interest to keep that institution from falling apart, basically giving the UK a good deal would send the wrong message out to the other EU states who would maybe contemplate having their own referendum?

Stavros

06-12-2017, 06:25 PM

The buzz today is that the opening of negotiations with the EU may be delayed, that they may not begin precisely on the 19th of June.
As a short guide, below is a general view of the difference between a Soft Brexit and a Hard Brexit. If the distinction is important now more than ever, it is because the outcome of the election has forced the Conservative party to seek a 'confidence and supply' arrangement in which the Democratic Unionist Party [DUP] of Northern Ireland will vote on confidence and budget issues to maintain the Conservative government in power. The DUP voted to Leave the EU but the majority of voters in Northern Ireland voted Remain, and the key here is the relationship with the Republic of Ireland, and the view of Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP:

No-one wants to see a ‘hard’ Brexit, what we want to see is a workable plan to leave the European Union, and that’s what the national vote was about – therefore we need to get on with that. “However, we need to do it in a way that respects the specific circumstances of Northern Ireland, and, of course, our shared history and geography with the Republic of Ireland.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/Who-are-the-DUP-democratic-unionist-party-northern-ireland/

A Soft Brexit seeks an accommodation with the EU which will allow the UK tariff-free access to the Single Market without being a full member, similar to the arrangement the EU has with Norway and Switzerland. If this version of a Soft Brexit is currently off the table it is because Norway and Switzerland pay a substantial amount of money to be part of the single market and accept the Four Fundamental Freedoms of the Single Market Act: freedom of movement for people, capital, goods and services; and this was rejected by the British people in the 2016 Referendum.
Another version of a Soft Brexit would see the UK be part of the EU Customs Union. This membership must cover all aspects of trade between the two and be governed by the European Court of Justice whose rulings the UK Government would be obliged to honour. It would raise tariffs on all goods traded between the two, create a whole new layer of paperwork, and require customs officers to inspect and monitor all goods passing between the two parties. It is also a rule that members of the EU Customs Union may not enter into third party trade agreements with countries outside the Union.
Thus, the plus side offers the UK continued access to a market of 500 million albeit with tariffs added and 'sovereignty' diminished, with the negative prospect of being less competitive with higher costs on transport threatening jobs and profits.

A Hard Brexit detaches the UK from the EU so that all of its trade with the EU will be subject to the same rules as apply to countries like the USA, it means trade subjected to tariffs, but frees the UK from legal ties to the EU and allows the UK to trade with all those economies in the world that are not part of the EU as either full members or members of the Customs Union.

I suspect the reality of both positions is that a phased withdrawal will be agreed which means that the UK in some form or another will be linked to the EU for between 5-10 years, possibly longer. The problem for both parties is that they do not want to suddenly lose trading relations, while for the EU the fear is that a soft accommodation of the UK will encourage other members to seek the same, weakening the EU as a whole, while the EU also does not want to be seen to be 'punishing' the UK for its decision to leave.

Although a year old and an article I don't wholly agree with, an argument that the UK will be fine outside the EU is here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/dont-panic-britains-economy-can-survive-just-fine-outside-the-european-union-a7118736.html

flabbybody

06-12-2017, 09:00 PM

Here's John Oliver's take on soft vs hard, as well as his proposal to put Lord Buckethead in charge of negotiations for the UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyVz5vgqBhE

Stavros

06-12-2017, 10:13 PM

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"...sign of things to come?
But thanks for the effort!

sukumvit boy

06-13-2017, 03:04 AM

Oh , that IS funny.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3783948/theresa-mays-rival-lord-buckethead-appears-on-us-tv-as-john-oliver-asks-pm-to-put-him-in-charge-of-
101355310135541013555

Stavros

06-13-2017, 04:30 PM

But not new, a Lord Buckethead first ran against Mrs Thatcher in her Finchley constituency in north London in 1987...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Buckethead

peejaye

06-13-2017, 04:40 PM

I honestly think Nigel Farage should be involved, why shouldn't he, he started all of this off, may as well have a say in finalising things?

flabbybody

06-13-2017, 07:19 PM

But not new, a Lord Buckethead first ran against Mrs Thatcher in her Finchley constituency in north London in 1987...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Buckethead
I love Lord Buckethead's position advocating the legalization of hunting fox hunters

Stavros

07-23-2017, 09:52 AM

Brexit negotiations continue, with a fog descending over what has actually been agreed so far. The agenda so far as focused on the Financial Arrangements between the UK and the EU, and the status of EU Citizens in the UK and the EU. Negotiations for the UK are currently led by 'Brexit Bulldog' David Davis, but he may have to give up this role if, as gossip claims, he replaces Theresa May as Prime Minister in the next 6 months, given that Mrs May is a 'dead woman walking' to use an unfortunate phrase.

The sticking point with the financial arrangements is that the EU wants clarity now, whereas the British do not want to agree a final figure until the negotiations end in March 2019. In fact, while Boris Johnson agreed with a militant bank bencher that the EU can 'go whistle' if it thinks the UK will fork out 100 billion Euros, the UK's chief negotiator, 'Brexit Bulldog' David Davis appears to have conceded the principle that the UK will honour its commitments, even if the figure has not been agreed.
In any event, given the UK has a rebate agreement with the EU, 100 billion in net terms after the rebate could be 60 billion, so a smaller gross figure will thus produce a smaller net contribution; most of the hysteria over these figures is being pumped out by the Militant Tendency alarmed at the prospect their leaders are seeking a 'soft' Brexit which will continue to link the UK to the EU.
The arrangements cover the existing commitments that relate to general budgetary plans, but also include, for example, the UK's contributions to EU pensions, offering the cute example of the MEP Nigel Farage boasting about the UK leaving the EU while he gets his EU pension without complaint from the very people he claims to loathe and detest. But just as one can imagine people in the EU complaining about paying his pension, I don't see why UK tax payers should have to pay all of it if the EU agrees that the UK should become liable to the pensions of the UK's EU MEP's and bureaucrats when they leave Brussels and Strasbourg -these are the kind of details that lie in the thicket of EU law which are going to prove difficult to disentangle. There is an interesting article on the finances here-
http://openeurope.org.uk/today/blog/the-view-from-brussels-how-negotiations-between-the-uk-and-the-eu-on-brexit-financial-settlement-are-slowly-making-progress/

On EU citizens there are also complex legal problems -the UK could offer dual citizenship to EU nationals living in the EU who lived here before the EU Referendum, but not all the other 27 member states allow dual citizeship so anyone taking UK citizenship will have to give up the one they arrived with -Spain allows dual nationality with some countries, but not the UK, is one example, with more in the link below. The crucial problem may be the UK's insistence that when it leaves the EU the European Court of Justice which rules on EU affairs including the rights of EU citizens, will have no jurisdiction in the UK -but that this connection will not immediately cease with regard to cases before the court that are still being dealt with on the leave date. It is not clear if UK law can protect the rights of EU citizens to their satisfaction if such laws 'repatriated' under the Repeal Bill do not replicate the rights they had before.
https://theconversation.com/european-law-expert-uk-has-sparked-race-to-the-bottom-that-will-strip-citizens-of-their-rights-80518

While we do not know how leaving the EU will affect the UK's membership of Euratom, the nuclear body that regulates EU policy on nuclear energy but also the trade in Radio Isotopes used by Radiologists in the health service, we do know that two EU regulatory bodies based in London's Canary Wharf complex, will be re-located out of the UK -these are the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Authority, both of which employ c1,000 staff in London.
https://www.ft.com/content/72ead180-229a-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16
https://www.ft.com/content/4111197d-f694-3c02-a128-04bfb6a9f5ea

I know it can sound tedious, even boring, but the devil always was lurking in the details, and after 40 years of intimacy, we cannot expect a simple exit without complications.

peejaye

07-23-2017, 09:59 AM

Stavros

07-23-2017, 01:24 PM

I'm not sure what's happening but every time I see David Davies on television shaking someone's hand in Brussels ;he appears to be on laughing gas! This makes me nervous.
Let's be honest, it's simple. We are NOT going to get a good deal, right wing "spin" will make out the government have got what they wanted but the intelligent amongst us will know otherwise.

Look at it this way, Peejaye- there are four headline elements to the exit: Sovereignty, Borders & Immigration, Financial freedom, and free trade, the future is not clear on any of them, and it is good or bad depending on whether one wants the UK out of the EU at any cost, or wishes this had never happened.

The Legal argument is that 'Sovereignty' will be repatriated to the UK House of Parliament from Brussels, so the UK will once again 'make its own laws'. In fact Parliament always had the right to veto EU legislation, so it never lost sovereignty in a purely legal sense. Parliament incorporated EU laws and directives into UK law (bearing in mind the differences in the application of the law in England and Wales, and in Scotland and Norther Ireland) as part of its commitment to the EU project, but the EU never had the power to impose a single law on the UK.
But does 'Sovereignty' mean what the Militants think it does? The UK has incorporated UN law because the UN is the primary source of international law, such as the Laws of the Sea, the Laws of War, Public (ie Commercial) Law and so on. I don't hear any calls for the UK to withdraw from the UN, though the UK's presence on the Security Council may be reviewed. And even after the UK leaves the EU you can guarantee the UK will agree to abide by European laws by repatriating EU law into UK law through the Repeal Act, such as agreements on climate change, health and sport to name three.

The claim that leaving the EU will 'restore' control of the borders and reduce immigration is based on the view that once the UK leaves the Single Market, the free movement of EU citizens across the EU and into the UK will end. There is no doubt that the movement as we know it now will end, and that an unknown number, certainly in the thousands, may leave the UK as European agencies leave the UK -mostly London- for other EU cities.
How the fall in the volume of EU labour will affect agriculture and food processing is not known, Tim Lang at the City University believes the govt has not done any forward thinking on this and that the food sector in particular is headed for a crisis in both Labour, and in the regulation of food imports which will shift from being organised through the EU to the Food Standards Agency which has had its budget and staff cut substantially since 2010 so the UK food sector at the moment is not even prepared for an exit from the EU. You can read about this here-
https://www.city.ac.uk/news/2017/july/brexit-food-paper-tim-lang

The 'Financial Freedom' is the belief that once the UK leaves the EU its financial obligations will end and the UK will be richer for it. To a degree that is true, but as I suggested in the post earlier today, there will be a transitional period during which the UK's payments will gradually get smaller, but in the long term we could be paying for 10 years and we do not yet know if the EU will agree to a trading relationship which brings financial obligations with it. You might say on this the Militants are 'whistling in the wind' in the hope they get what they want. And there is no guarantee any money saved from the EU will be spent on the NHS or any other department, it could be used to draw down the deficit.

The same is true of free trade, with Militants like Liam Fox believing a new era of global trade is upon us and that we will be signing trade deals with the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China and India, though it is not known what they will be, how long it will take to negotiate them, and whether or not they will compensate for the loss of trade with the EU. Indeed, it may be that Davis, May and Chancellor Philip Hammond are concerned that the deals will not match current trade, and are thus looking for ways to remain linked to the EU without being part of either the Single Market or the Customs Union, because trade is regulated by the European Court of Justice. I don't see any way round this conundrum, also a problem for Labour with its mantra of 'tariff-free access to the single market' which is nonsense.

peejaye

07-23-2017, 01:46 PM

Stavros

07-23-2017, 07:46 PM

Yes; It is a complicated issue to deal with and obviously a first for those involved with the negotiations, can't help thinking we're using a sledgehammer to crack a nut though? Think back to the days before the EEC was formed, we seemed to of managed ok back then?

Peejaye, the UK was falling behind the European Economic Community when Edward Heath's Tory government negotiated our entry. I could argue that the history of the British Empire is contiguous with the history of the Honourable East India Company, founded in 1600, and that as a result this country has not 'stood alone' since that year, and is not prepared for it now. For over 400 years Imperial Preference became a fix whereby the British economy benefited from its colonial possessions, of which the greatest irony is that the one they lost through Revolution -British America, subsequently the United States of America- throughout the 19th century became the most important because lucrative trading partner, more financially worthwhile than the 'Jewel in the Crown', ie India.

In 1960, as the Empire was dissolved, the UK was a founder member of the European Free Trade Area, formed to boost the fortunes of the economy as the Empire receded into history, and because France's titanic President, Charles de Gaulle, vetoed the UK's application to join. Nevertheless it is estimated that being a member of the EFTA benefited the UK economy, and there is simply no doubt the UK benefited economically from being in the EEC/EU since 1973 as this FT report shows:
https://www.ft.com/content/202a60c0-cfd8-11e5-831d-09f7778e7377

My own memory is petty but telling, because I like cheese. I recall that even as late as 1977 if I went into the average supermarket, the only foreign cheese on sale was Danish Blue, a failed attempt to emulate Stilton, which has no equal. I had been working in France where I had been introduced to Camembert and Brie, Bleu de Bresse, Chèvre, and Roquefort. The only place you could buy these cheeses in the UK was in the legendary Paxton & Whitfield in Mayfair, London NW3, or Ambleside, owing to the Nuclear Scientists working at Sellafield who lived in the area. I even knew someone who worked in a Deli in NW3 who one day sold me an absurdly delicious Roquefort which I ate in one sitting with a bottle of Vermouth. Pretty wild, what? By 1980 you could buy Brie in Tesco. As for the selection of affordable wine, I could go on for hours about that. I just hope we don't lose a lot of what we gained.

Stavros

07-25-2017, 12:41 PM

A bracing article in today's Independent that highlights how unprepared the UK is to leave the EU with all that implies with regard to nuclear energy matters, the 'Open Skies' that governs the right of airlines to be based in the UK and fly to EU members states, and things which have gone unremarked such as

The UK does not have its own capacity to do things like certify maintenance facilities if it leaves the European Aviation Safety Agency. Yes, you heard that right. The UK won’t be able to certify the people that fix the planes. As with so many of these issues, the UK will either have to negotiate to remain in the Agency (which is within the dreaded European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction), or establish its own capacity to replace what it does from a standing start in only 20 months.

Apparently we need experts after all...read more here- bearing in mind it is a biased article
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-eu-negotiator-europe-euratom-airline-safety-negotiations-theresa-may-worse-anyone-guessed-a7858586.html

peejaye

07-25-2017, 02:41 PM

What did we do post 1973? Were we not capable of flying aeroplanes safely? Beareacrecy running riot!

Stavros

07-25-2017, 09:55 PM

Peejaye, some bureaucracy yes, but think of it in EU terms as standardization, and what replaces it when the UK leaves the EU.

What the EU has achieved through standardization in numerous industries and consumer affairs is to do what it can to ensure that if you buy a car in the UK it has the same level of safety as a car does in Germany or Spain, that your right as a consumer to purchase a bar of chocolate in Belgium is the same as it is in Italy. This does mean that a layer of bureaucracy has developed to monitor and develop standards across the board, but that is a good thing as EU standards are often judged to be higher than in other countries. The EU has higher standards of food hygiene and safety than the US which wants to sell the UK its chemically processed muck masquerading as 'food' when they negotiate the trade deal which the current President wants to benefit the US more than the UK.

We have the people to conduct safety checks on aeroplanes, but they are working to EU standards and are subject to the EU's assessment and in extreme cases rulings of the European Court of Justice which Theresa May insists will play no role in the governance of the UK. As yet the government has not announced plans to replace the EU Aviation Safety Agency with one of its own, and although there is no doubt the guys on the ground know their job, if the EU does not see an official safety agency in charge it could deny carriers entry to EU airports on the grounds of safety. You could argue the same with food exports if there is no official body to guarantee the safety and hygiene of food exports to the EU from the UK.

And the irony is that just as the Coalition government from 2010-2015 slashed public sector jobs, a trend continued by the Tory government from 2015-2017, there may be a need to create more public sector jobs to fill the gaps left by our exit from the EU as we replace EU institutions with our own -assuming that we do. A large proportion of the money we were told we would have to spend on our NHS when we leave the EU may be spent on salaries for people in numerous agencies in food, fishing, aviation, chemicals, consumer goods, etc that have to do the work we currently share with the EU. Replacing one layer of bureaucracy in the EU will merely lead to its replication in the UK.

flabbybody

07-26-2017, 05:21 AM

Stavros I'll have you know my mother never in her 8 decades served me soup with "chemically processed muck"
It does appear however that the way Yanks clean chickens is not quite up to British standards. This might be one of many hurdles to a UK-US trade deal.
http://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/C2A43A98-713E-11E7-B9C1-A6E503041C02

Stavros

07-26-2017, 12:42 PM

Stavros I'll have you know my mother never in her 8 decades served me soup with "chemically processed muck"
It does appear however that the way Yanks clean chickens is not quite up to British standards. This might be one of many hurdles to a UK-US trade deal.

A fair riposte to my provocative comment, and I apologise if you were offended.

Of course there is a lot of good food in the US, and I expect where the food is less than good it has its equals in the UK, with chicken appearing to be head of the line. There are multiple fast-food outlets here based on chicken which I would never walk into. If a whole chicken can be purchased for £5 or less I doubt it ever saw the light of day in its short life. Much of this cheap meat is soaked in sauce anyway so the chicken is just one flavour amongst others. For what it's worth we do better than parts of China. I was told by a Shanghai citizen not to eat in any of the small holes in the wall type eating places off the Nanjing Lu because whatever they say the meat is, it might be something else, as in ' you really don't want to know'.

The three key problem areas are hormone-induced beef, GM crops such as wheat products, and chlorine-washed chicken. It is ironic because the US and the EU have high food standards, but the EU sells more meat and food to the US than vice versa.

Food is a sensitive area, and has been difficult to handle. For many years the UK imported beef from Argentina -it amounted to 43% of our meat imports before the second world war, declining to 28% by 1950 (indeed meat production in Argentina has declined and they now export more fish than beef). The problem was that foot and mouth disease was endemic in Argentina and neighbouring Uruguay and the food standards of the time were not as high as they are now, and outbreaks of foot and mouth in the UK were attributed to infections from South America, possibly because the imported meat was chilled rather than frozen. Worse still, outbreaks of typhoid in the UK in the early 1960s -notably in Aberdeen in 1964- were traced to cans of corned beef imported from Argentina that had been processed in a plant with sub-standard hygiene using impure water. This in turn led to a significant decline of imports, sales of Fray Bentos corned beef plummeted, and beef herds in the UK increased in size to compensate for losses from abroad.

If the Argentine beef problem was an example that encouraged a more diligent attitude to food standards worldwide, foot and mouth has continued to be an episodic problem in the UK and the French banned imports of British beef in 1990 following the incidences of 'mad cow' disease. In other words, there have been persistent problems of food hygiene in the UK and elsewhere, even with improved systems of monitoring and control.

I suspect there is a convenient view that the Americans are more likely to export cheap products to us than the good stuff they eat themselves -whether this is true or not-, and I don't know that confidence in these things can be easily overcome if the additional view is that any US-UK trade agreement will be of greater benefit to the US than to the UK.

Stavros

07-31-2017, 11:21 PM

Over the weekend there were rumours of a split in the British government, with the Chancellor Philip Hammond claiming that in the transitional period that will begin when the UK leaves the EU, the UK will still be 'recognisably European' for at least three years during which free movement will probably continue. Cue howls of rage from the Bangers 'n Mash brigades, not least when Amber Rudd appeared to agree, and Liam Fox disagreed but since then the Prime Minister Theresa May has reinforced her view that 'out' means 'out' and that free movement ends when the UK leaves. This matters to many businesses who have five or ten year contracts with other companies in the EU, but so far, it is all clear....right?

In the meantime, today the EU opened tenders for the new locations for two EU agencies which, because of Brexit, will be re-locating from London: the European Baking Authority and the European Medicines Agency. Both employ around 1,000 people in Canary Whard in East London, but in addition attract thousands of visitors each year who purchase the hotel space in that Docklands area. Those jobs and that demand for hotel space will go over the next 3 years. What the precise impact on the local economy will be is not known, and the UK which currently co-ordinates banking and medicine regulations will have to develop its own when the UK leaves.

You can read about it here-
http://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-ema-eba-european-banking-authority-european-medicines-agency-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-eu-agencies-leaving-london-because-of-brexit/

Stavros

08-23-2017, 01:13 PM

Since the post above, Philip Hammond and Liam Fox, two men on opposite sides of the fence on Brexit published a joint article that conceded a transitional period would be necessary to smooth the UK's path out of the EU. It was the first sign that even the hard nuts, like Fox, may have to tone down their rhetoric to match reality.

In the last 10 days the Government has published two briefing papers to give much-requested clarity on Britain's negotiating positions, the first was on the Customs Union, the second on the border with Ireland, but both made their issues more obscure instead. The UK would leave the single market and the Customs Union, but seek a transitional arrangement providing the UK and the EU with a temporary Customs Union that has all the same rules and regulations as the EU's Custom's Union which raised the obvious question -why? Why not remain in the Customs Union as it is? The answer is that to 'take back control' of the UK Parliament's sovereign right to make its own laws, it cannot be part of a Union whose laws are made by the European Court of Justice [ECJ]. Yet in the last 48 hours another paper has been floated (due out later today, Wednesday 23rd) that implies the UK government will accept rulings of the ECJ, the wording apparently saying th ECJ's direct rulings will end, implying that others may hold. This is either a pragmatic acceptance that the reality of ending 40 years of integration cannot be ended overnight, or a betrayal of the British people, depending on your point of view.

On Ireland, one proposal to ensure there is no return to the border posts patrolled by the military, is to use technology -number plate recognition cameras can monitor vehicles moving to and from from the Republic to Northern Ireland, a proposal that some thought was innovative, others inane. Another proposal to move the border into the Irish Sea suggests the government is all-at-sea so it might work.

The reality is that reality is far more complex than these negotiations can deal with in the time limit set by the parties. The UK wants to begin trade negotiations in October, the EU remains adamant the UK must first agree the financial terms of the exit, the Irish Border questions, and the rights of EU and UK citizens. Such pressure may force the UK government to negotiate terms that are pragmatic from one point of view, concessions amounting to betrayal from another. Vince Cable, who now leads the Liberal Democrat party, remains of the view that the UK when all the negotiating is done, will remain in the EU. A second referendum on the final terms of the deal may swing it -or not. But will the citizens of the UK be given a chance to answer the question, and what will the question be?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-theresa-may-european-court-justice-uk-laws-influence-u-turn-a7907316.html

Budweiser

09-07-2017, 02:49 AM

This sounds pretty good to me.

Britain To Slash 'Migrant' EU Immigration Under Brexit
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/06/establishment-rails-proposals-limit-influx-migrant-labour-brexit/

filghy2

09-07-2017, 06:25 AM

There's actually very little evidence that immigration has adverse effects on existing residents. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/immigrants-don-t-steal-from-americans-paychecks

Stavros

09-07-2017, 09:43 AM

This sounds pretty good to me.

Britain To Slash 'Migrant' EU Immigration Under Brexit
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/06/establishment-rails-proposals-limit-influx-migrant-labour-brexit/

I don't agree with everything in this article by Simon Jenkins, but I do agree with this:

There is a crude chauvinist appeal in “British jobs for British workers”, as there is in the plea to avoid “community swamping”. But the regions voting most strongly for Brexit were those with least immigrants. Britain’s prosperous southern cities seem able to absorb large numbers of new arrivals – domestic and foreign – without soaring unemployment. Have Whitehall economists not noticed that joblessness is far higher in low-immigrant areas, such as the north-east?

The most serious damage to British community identity, other than in small pockets, comes not from immigration but from social deterioration. Brexit was a cry not of xenophobia but of neglect. If May really wanted to respond to the anti-migrant sentiment of the referendum, she would do everything to encourage economic growth away from the south-east and towards the Midlands and the north.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/06/britain-control-immigration-debate-nasty-politics-social-neglect-brexit

peejaye

09-07-2017, 01:20 PM

That's all correct but I believe the areas voting to leave were the most impoverished areas of the UK?

Stavros

09-07-2017, 02:57 PM

That's all correct but I believe the areas voting to leave were the most impoverished areas of the UK?

Indeed, as a report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Trust has shown, extract below. But note too that areas where Leave scored highly -65% in Lincolnshire, for example- are heavily dependent on EU trade, just as many fishermen who voted Leave are using boats purchased with EU funds, and so on.

The result of the referendum, therefore, has thrown new light on deeper social, geographic and cultural divides that often lay hidden below the surface of our national conversation. Looking ahead, it seems likely that these stubbornly persistent and growing inequalities will strengthen. Both regional and individual disparities have pushed to the margins overlapping groups of voters, who live either in areas of decline or who live on low incomes and lack the skills that are required to adapt and prosper amid an economy that is increasingly built for those with skills, qualifications and resources. The more disadvantaged voters that turned out for Brexit are also united by values that encourage support for more socially conservative, authoritarian and nativist responses. On the whole, Leave voters have far more in common with each other than they have things that divide them. Over three-quarters of Leave voters feel disillusioned with politicians; two-thirds support the death penalty; and well over half feel very strongly English. Over one third of Leave supporters hold all three of these attitudes, compared to just 6 percent who do not hold any of them. This more liberal group of Brexit voters, therefore, constituted a very small part of the coalition for leaving the EU.
https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/brexit-vote-explained-poverty-low-skills-and-lack-opportunities

filghy2

09-08-2017, 03:24 AM

That's all correct but I believe the areas voting to leave were the most impoverished areas of the UK?

It's also true that the areas voting to leave have relatively few immigrants, even though concerns about immigration appear to have been the key factor behind the vote. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/dateline/article/2017/05/26/how-areas-low-immigration-voted-mainly-brexit

People seem to be very prone to fear of things they have little direct experience of.

peejaye

09-08-2017, 01:31 PM

I suspect the only areas with very few immigrants are in the Tory Heartlands & the Cotswolds?
It's not really relevant is it? 52% said out & we want to see it happen, soon!

Stavros

09-08-2017, 04:09 PM

I suspect the only areas with very few immigrants are in the Tory Heartlands & the Cotswolds?
It's not really relevant is it? 52% said out & we want to see it happen, soon!

It works both ways. Lincolnshire has a high volume of migrant and immigrant workers but is mostly Tory; whereas across England in general the majority of Tory constituencies have the lowest levels of foreign born immigrants.
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/areas-more-immigration-always-vote-13073361

The referendum result hides too many variables to reach the conclusion that the 'British people' voted to leave the EU, and does not ask the question that was not asked, what does leaving the EU mean? If you set aside the barrage of lies and misinformation produced by the Leave campaigns, the free movement of people which became a substitute for immigration was only one of the key issues on which voters registered Leave. Some voters had no interest in the EU but saw the referendum as a chance to vote against the Cameron led government. Moreover, 52% on a turnout of 72% does not to me register a convincing argument, and in legal terms, a referendum has only advisory capacity it is not binding on the government.

It appears from recent news reports that the government has discovered how difficult it is going to be to extricate ourselves from the EU, and the various arguments for and against a transitional phase -rational to most, a sell-out to the hard-liners- suggest we will be in the EU in some form for maybe the next 5 years, or even ten.

We have yet to receive any clear alternative from the Labour Party which so far has colluded with the Tories to take the UK out of the EU without a clue as to what they think will happen when we do.

It is still possible that the House of Commons will reject the two Bills (the current 'Repeal' Bill, and the Article 50) when they are voted on, or reject some parts of the Bills. The idea that we will have a 'clean break' and be members at 11.59 and not members from midnight seems fanciful to me.

But who knows? We don't even know how much longer Theresa May or her rickety government is going to last.

peejaye

09-08-2017, 04:28 PM

What you & the Establishment are not convinced by means nothing to ordinary, hard working people whom have had enough & voted leave!
I don't care about turnout figures, the Establishment got a kick in the teeth & long may it continue.
I may even get a seat on a morning Eurostar service out of St Pancras when that load of free-loaders get their comeuppance!
Win win win for Peejaye :banana:

Stavros

09-08-2017, 05:41 PM

But Peejaye, what do you win, when you win? I don't think of myself as being part of the establishment, I don't vote for either of the two establishment parties...

peejaye

09-08-2017, 05:49 PM

Then I'm sorry Stavros. As for what I mean; I despise the Establishment. I will gladly pay more for things despite being put out of work by this Governments stupidity!

Stavros

09-09-2017, 12:37 AM

Then I'm sorry Stavros. As for what I mean; I despise the Establishment. I will gladly pay more for things despite being put out of work by this Governments stupidity!

Peejaye if you voted to Leave the EU, why did you vote that way? Was it because you wanted to attack the establishment or because you genuinely think the UK will be better off outside the EU?

-Take back control of our borders: we have never lost control, the UK can deny entry to anyone from the EU, and it often has.
-Take back control of our laws: we have never lost control, the UK Parliament has had the right to veto all and any EU law.
-Take back control of immigration: the UK govt can pass laws to halt immigration to zero any time it wants to.
-Sign trade deals with anyone it wants to: true, but inside the EU UK firms have signed trade deals with all of the major economies that the UK outside the EU would want to trade with. We don't need to be outside the EU to trade with the world, because the world wants to trade with the EU.

We are giving up access to a market of 500 million that most of the world wants entry to, and all of the deals we have made in the last 40 years were an integral part of the UK's membership of the EU. It works. And it works to our benefit.

filghy2

09-09-2017, 03:14 AM

Then I'm sorry Stavros. As for what I mean; I despise the Establishment. I will gladly pay more for things despite being put out of work by this Governments stupidity!

All I can make out from your various posts on this topic is that you have no idea what you are in favour of as an alternative to EU membership, you are unable to explain how exactly you will be better off and your principal motivation is resentment of "the Establishment". Also, that democracy is so sacred to you that there can be no further votes, even though it is unclear what the 52% of 75% thought they were voting for.

Aside from anything else, why do you imagine that Brexit will hurt the Establishment more than it hurts people like you?

flabbybody

09-09-2017, 04:10 AM

Stavros

09-09-2017, 07:52 AM

Is rehashing the referendum result worth our time? You guys voted to leave.
Yanks voted for Trump. For better or worse (certainly worse) we need to accept these outcomes and move on.

I understand your point but what leaving the EU means in practical terms is no clearer now than it was during the debate as the government team negotiating Brexit is made up for the most part of Tories who wanted to remain. Their attempt to both leave the EU and retain certain privileges of EU membership is causing some confusion in Barnier's team as to what it is the UK wants and what the EU believes leaving the EU to mean. The hard brexit camp clarify their position by saying leave means a clean break, but there are companies all over the UK which have binding contracts with companies in the EU; we have no clarity on what the legal status of EU citizens in the UK will be or UK citizens in the EU, the border with Ireland remains unresolved, a 'clean break' is a fantasy. All these issues during the campaign were wished away by Leave as minor details that it would be easy to deal with but they are not. Some politicians even think that when it comes down to the final vote on Article 50 the Commons will vote against it, so that we are still unable to state with absolute certainty that the UK will leave the EU and if it does, on what terms. This time next year we could have a Labour government whose position on the EU is no clearer than the Tories.
I guess you would have to imagine what in practical terms it would mean if California or Texas, or Alaska left the Union with regard to tax arrangements, contracts, pensions, defence, science and so on. When Slovakia parted from the Czech Republic most of their arrangements were dealt with in the first year, it appeared to be a relatively easy split, but on some issues they were still negotiating ten years after the date of their independence. There are many miles to go in this dark wood before anyone can get a good night's sleep.

filghy2

09-09-2017, 10:02 AM

Is rehashing the referendum result worth our time? You guys voted to leave.
Yanks voted for Trump. For better or worse (certainly worse) we need to accept these outcomes and move on.

"Democracy is the worst form of government.....except for all the others"
Winston Churchill, London 1944

Democracy does not mean that the losing side must shut up and allow the winners to do as they like. Democracy would be much the worse if government policies were not subject to continual scrutiny and criticism. Even if the policy is settled (unclear in this case) it remains relevant to discuss what the effects will be.

peejaye

09-09-2017, 10:42 AM

Peejaye if you voted to Leave the EU, why did you vote that way? Was it because you wanted to attack the establishment or because you genuinely think the UK will be better off outside the EU?

-Take back control of our borders: we have never lost control, the UK can deny entry to anyone from the EU, and it often has.
-Take back control of our laws: we have never lost control, the UK Parliament has had the right to veto all and any EU law.
-Take back control of immigration: the UK govt can pass laws to halt immigration to zero any time it wants to.
-Sign trade deals with anyone it wants to: true, but inside the EU UK firms have signed trade deals with all of the major economies that the UK outside the EU would want to trade with. We don't need to be outside the EU to trade with the world, because the world wants to trade with the EU.

We are giving up access to a market of 500 million that most of the world wants entry to, and all of the deals we have made in the last 40 years were an integral part of the UK's membership of the EU. It works. And it works to our benefit.

We are not giving up access to anything. All these things are negotiable. We have representatives there who don't want to negotiate!

The reason I voted to leave the EU was the phenomenal amount of money the UK was sending there every week, the BBC estimated it at £161m per week, after grants etc were taken out. Unfortunately, I didn't realise this far-right, corrupt Government we have will just embezzle that money in further privatisation schemes & launder it to their friends within the private sector instead of bridging gaps left by leaving the market & investing it in public services.
On immigration, I do believe too many overseas people are living here, this Government cannot look after it's own people, let alone look after immigrants coming here.
A 9 year waiting list for a council property in London is an outrage! I know all previous Governments should of built more housing instigated by Thatcher selling them of in the 1980's.
I know you're going to say if you reply to this; £161m per week is nothing compared to what we will lose, I'm afraid all re-moaners are just speculating, you cannot possibly know.

peejaye

09-09-2017, 10:46 AM

Democracy does not mean that the losing side must shut up and allow the winners to do as they like. Democracy would be much the worse if government policies were not subject to continual scrutiny and criticism. Even if the policy is settled (unclear in this case) it remains relevant to discuss what the effects will be.

But you people aren't doing that. You want another referendum! It's not leaving the EU what's the problem, it's the people negotiating it!

filghy2

09-10-2017, 01:11 AM

We are not giving up access to anything. All these things are negotiable. We have representatives there who don't want to negotiate!

But how do you think negotiation works? Bargaining power depends on the extent to which each side has something that the other side needs. The fact is that the UK needs an agreement with the EU more than the EU needs an agreement with the UK, simply because the EU is a much larger market. The idea that you can leave the club and then demand to have all the previous benefits without paying the membership costs is just naive.

Aticus100

09-12-2017, 01:52 AM

Is rehashing the referendum result worth our time? You guys voted to leave.
Yanks voted for Trump. For better or worse (certainly worse) we need to accept these outcomes and move on.

"Democracy is the worst form of government.....except for all the others"
Winston Churchill, London 1944

But with Trump our American friends get to vote again in four years. Brexit will last far longer than that.

We need a vote once we see what Brexit looks like.

Essentially we voted on wether to continue with our European buffet or just have good old fashioned fish and chips (like they used to have in the old days) and enough people had rose tinted glasses and voted for fish and chips.

Fair enough, it's a democracy and a vote is a vote so fish and chips for 65 million people it is.

The thing is though, if it turns out not to be fish and chips but a dog shit sandwich, I'd quite like a I say in wether we all have to tuck in or not!

flabbybody

09-12-2017, 02:55 AM

so you want the right to re-vote on Brexit subject to final exit agreement? Why in god's name would EU sit down to negotiate in good faith under those terms?
Sorry, you can't buy a pair of new shoes, wear'em for a year and then return them for a refund because you decide they hurt your feet.

Stavros

09-12-2017, 10:38 AM

The government last night won the second reading of the Bill that will be the formal, legal mechanism whereby the UK leaves the EU. Just as in 1972 Parliament approved the European Communities Act which was the legal basis on which the UK joined the European Economic Community (as it was then) on 1st January 1973, so the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill will repeal that Act of Parliament and is in Parliamentary language

A Bill to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and make other provision in connection with the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.
http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/europeanunionwithdrawal.html

The passing of the Second Reading was immediately followed with a raft of proposed Amendments to the Bill which will be considered in Committee and at some time on the floor of the House, because many -most?- MPs seem to agree that the Bill was right in principle but misguided in many of the details which the government wants to pass without debate or vote using the prerogative acquired when Henry VIII was the (unelected) King of England. There are estimated to be 12,000 pieces of EU legislation that the Repeal Bill will, over time, have to re-write as English law or discard, so without the right of debate, there is a fear, notably in the Labour Party, that the Bill, if passed without amendments giving MPs the right to challenge laws, will enable a Tory Government -if there is one- to repeal and then discard aspects of European law that protects worker's rights, the regulation of industry and so on, and thus undermine the UK's quality of working conditions among other things.

In other words, the Withdrawal Bill takes the UK out of the EU, whereas a vote on Article 50 -a vote the Goverment did not want and tried to prevent in the Courts- will focus on the terms of the Exit and will presumably take place after the negotiations in Brussels have concluded and at some point before the proposed date of Exit in March 2019.

On the one hand, this means there is now no clear legal mechanism to prevent Brexit from happening. But on the other hand, we still do not know what that will mean in practice, but if viewed in terms of 'hard' or 'soft' Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn at a speech he is due to give today will continue to argue for a 'soft' Brexit:

“Labour respects the referendum result but we want a jobs-first Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) that guarantees full access to the European single market as part of a new trade agreement and relationship with the EU.
“A jobs-first Brexit that maintains and develops workers’ rights, and consumer and environmental protections and uses powers returned from Brussels to support a new industrial strategy. A jobs-first Brexit where work pays, employees have security and decent conditions and prosperity is shared by the true wealth creators – that means all of us.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/12/jeremy-corbyn-calls-for-uk-to-retain-full-access-to-eu-single-market

This proposal would appear to mean that the UK if it were to negotiate access to the Single Market on such terms would be liable for annual payments, which the hard brexiteers oppose; be liable to the judgement of the European Court of Justice in cases involving commerce and rights, to which the hard brexiteers are opposed; and may also include some form of 'free movement' of people into the UK from the EU which the hard brexiteers are opposed to. It would be, in effect, membership of the EU under different terms, similar to the relationship Norway and Switzerland have to which the hard brexiteers are opposed.

That the Conservative government could fail to hang on to power in the next 18 months is quite possible, as is an election that returns a Labour government, but in neither case does the current situation help us understand what the UK's relationship with the EU is going to be like, but in some form the UK will no longer be a full member and there is now nothing that can be done to stop it unless the government fails to get the Third Reading of the Withdrawal Bill through when it comes up for a vote whenever that is probably in the next 6 months depending on how much time is allotted for the Committee Stage.

Jericho

09-12-2017, 07:19 PM

I am a European and this shit saddens me!

Stavros

09-17-2017, 08:12 AM

The conflict inside the Tory party over Brexit has taken a new, possibly dramatic turn this week as Boris Johnson revives his ambition to be both leader of the party and Prime Minister.

It is clear that what has motivated him is not so much his anxiety that the UK is negotiating a transitional arrangement with the EU which will mean the UK retaining some form of membership for 2-5 years with all that implies with regard to things 'staying the same' and thus not marking a clean break with the EU - but the feeling Johnson has that if he doesn't step forward now, he will miss the bus and the opportunity to be leader at a time when Theresa May's days as PM are drawing to a close (are they?).

Johnson was seething with rage when David Cameron became leader of the party, as he regarded Cameron when they were both at Eton as a half-baked twit who could never match the intellectual brilliance of a man destined to replace Churchill as the greatest (half-American) Briton who ever lived. Even worse, the campaign that has been growing around Jacob Rees-Mogg as the alternative to Theresa May must have rung alarm bells for Johnson.

And not only did he see this as the moment to strike, he did so knowing that his Prime Minister's team has flagged in advance an important speech on Brexit Mrs May is due to give in Florence next week. So up pops Johnson with a 4,000 word manifesto published in the Tories own Telegraph, a paper that is owned by two tax-dodging millionaire brothers who live in splendid seclusion on the island of Sark, and only too happy to see the back of the woman who almost lost them the election. Johnson revives the claim that by 'taking back control' of finances and immigration, the UK will be able to channel that money into the NHS -

Once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350m per week. It would be a fine thing as many of us have pointed out if a lot of that money went on the NHS, provided we use that cash injection to modernise and make the most of new technology... "One of the advantages of investing in the NHS - if we combine that investment with reform - is that we can turbo charge the role of our health service in driving bioscience."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-brexit-nhs-350m-theresa-may-leaderhsip-bid-speculation-a7949806.html

But is Johnson a believer in free markets? He claims that

"Outside the EU there are obvious opportunities - in agriculture, fisheries, in the setting of indirect taxation," he said.
"At the stroke of a pen, the Chancellor will be able to cut VAT on tampons; often demanded by Parliament but - absurdly - legally impossible to deliver."

What he doesn't tell us is why we should pay VAT on anything as VAT was introduced when the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973 and if it wanted to, the UK govt once out of the EU could simply abolish it. As for agriculture and fisheries, they are subsidized by the EU and, it seems, be protected from the harsh reality of free markets by being subsidized after it. As for the NHS, how much it gets will always depend on how successful ministers are in extracting money for it from the Treasury, but if the country becomes poorer in the aftermath of Brexit, there will be cuts to the NHS as with other departments, and most free marketeers want to abolish a publicly funded health service and move to a private insurance-based system.

So in this incoherent vision based on wishful thinking there is really just a commitment to a hard Brexit and an appeal to Tories to back him against Theresa May and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The man is desperate to be recognized as the most important man in Britain, and may even get his chance to prove it. But will May sack him for his disloyalty? Either way it exposes the deep divisions in the Conservative Party that have existed ever since the UK became part of the European Community in 1973, divisions that Brexit is deepening, with no sign of where this party is taking the country other than the sign marked 'Exit'.