For the Brits: When will BREXIT referendum happen ?

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...-commonwealth/

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Originally Posted by Laphroaig

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...

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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.

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

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.

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/bar...-negotiations/

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...-start-19-june

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?

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/Wh...thern-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/bu...-a7118736.html

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

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

Oh , that IS funny.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3783948...-in-charge-of-
Attachment 1013553Attachment 1013554Attachment 1013555

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 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?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

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

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I love Lord Buckethead's position advocating the legalization of hunting fox hunters

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/...king-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...r-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-...1-d5f7e0cd0a16
https://www.ft.com/content/4111197d-...8-04bfb6a9f5ea

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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.

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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/jul...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.

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?

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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?

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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-...d-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.

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/...-a7858586.html

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

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.

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...1-A6E503041C02

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Originally Posted by flabbybody

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.

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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.

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/brexi...use-of-brexit/

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...-a7907316.html

This sounds pretty good to me.

Britain To Slash 'Migrant' EU Immigration Under Brexit
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017...labour-brexit/

There's actually very little evidence that immigration has adverse effects on existing residents. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/artic...cans-paychecks

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Originally Posted by Budweiser

This sounds pretty good to me.

Britain To Slash 'Migrant' EU Immigration Under Brexit
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017...labour-brexit/

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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/commenti...neglect-brexit

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

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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

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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...-opportunities

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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

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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/...-mainly-brexit

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

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!

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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!

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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...-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.

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:

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...

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!

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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!

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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.

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Originally Posted by peejaye

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!

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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?

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