Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
holzz
No, we couldn't form our own trade pacts. We had to accept EU standards on goods and services. The Brexiteers had a point, since that's fact.
I didn't say the USA left NAFTA. I said the USA reformed NAFTA but it didn't retreat from its own regional bloc. So why should the UK? But Brexit is done, we have to live with it.
a) what you did say was "The USA could afford to leave NAFTA and Mexico/Canada need it more" which is at least misleading.
b) The UK was free to sign as many trade deals with non-EU countries as it could, as Germany did- George Osborne returned from China with a Trade Delegation that signed contracs worth $80 bn, I assume these were not just pieces of paper. Trade Pacts are different and as the EU is itself a trade pact on one level, your use of the phrase is confusing.
c) You say "We had to accept EU standards on goods and services" -this is nonsense, as most of the UK's agreements on standards and regulations are international and thus include both the EU and non-EU country agreements. Those standards and reguations that were specific to the EU in the context of the Single Market were part of a harmonization process within the EU to ensure a level playing field across the Single Market. It means that while Boris Johnson's Govt may talk about 'de-regulation' it does not infact refer to those standards and regulations that are managed by the British Standards Institution [BSI] which are international in origin, but those specific to the EU, and thus the critical focus has been on the rights at work and other provisions in the Social Chapter of the Single Market Act. Bear in mnd that the Tories are manipulating concepts to convince people like you that we have left the 'straitjacket' of EU rules and regulations -some of which originated in the UK when we were full members- when the reality is that the majority of Standards and Regulations are globla rather than just European, as the link explains.
https://brexit-standards.ideasoneurope.eu/
Yes we have left the EU and there is nothing more we can do about it. But the extent to which the UK Government can make its own rules is limited by prior international agreements, though the Govt of Boris Johnson seems to regard such legal instruments as being laws they can break when they want to.
Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
obslam
Very few credible people think Brexit will have any big economic impact, positive or negative. One of the reasons that politicians don't really talk about it any more. It's a non-issue.
And who might these 'credible people' be? You don't offer much in the way of support for your views. There is no rule that says you must in this forum, but it would at least enable those reading your posts to know where you get your information from. As for the politicias, well let's be honest. Labour doesn't want to focus too much on Brexit because it doesn't have a coherent position on it, and has not since it took no official position on Leave or Remain yet supported the Tories from the 2015 Referendum Bill through the votes on Article 50, and the Repeal of the 1973 Euopean Communitied Act, and only opposed Theresa May's version of the EU WIthdrawal Act to score points in the division lobby. My guess is that the voters last week looked at the parties and decided if they wanted Brexit they might as well vote Tory rather than Labour. The Tories have gone quiet on the topic because they know that some of their most loyal voters who own businsesses regret voting to Leave the EU and the Single Market because it is damaging their business.
The day will come when Brext returns to the headlines and the men and women responsibe for it won't be able to run away and hide, though I suspect that when the going gets rough, Boris will be on his bike, unless more scandals of his own making force the party to get rid of him. If I told some of the people I know I wanted a Caribbean holiday and suggest they pay for it, the response would be two words, one beginning with the letter 'F', the other 'O'.
Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
a) what you did say was "The USA could afford to leave NAFTA and Mexico/Canada need it more" which is at least misleading.
b) The UK was free to sign as many trade deals with non-EU countries as it could, as Germany did- George Osborne returned from China with a Trade Delegation that signed contracs worth $80 bn, I assume these were not just pieces of paper. Trade Pacts are different and as the EU is itself a trade pact on one level, your use of the phrase is confusing.
c) You say "We had to accept EU standards on goods and services" -this is nonsense, as most of the UK's agreements on standards and regulations are international and thus include both the EU and non-EU country agreements. Those standards and reguations that were specific to the EU in the context of the Single Market were part of a harmonization process within the EU to ensure a level playing field across the Single Market. It means that while Boris Johnson's Govt may talk about 'de-regulation' it does not infact refer to those standards and regulations that are managed by the British Standards Institution [BSI] which are international in origin, but those specific to the EU, and thus the critical focus has been on the rights at work and other provisions in the Social Chapter of the Single Market Act. Bear in mnd that the Tories are manipulating concepts to convince people like you that we have left the 'straitjacket' of EU rules and regulations -some of which originated in the UK when we were full members- when the reality is that the majority of Standards and Regulations are globla rather than just European, as the link explains.
https://brexit-standards.ideasoneurope.eu/
Yes we have left the EU and there is nothing more we can do about it. But the extent to which the UK Government can make its own rules is limited by prior international agreements, though the Govt of Boris Johnson seems to regard such legal instruments as being laws they can break when they want to.
https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/policy-making/
I meant comprehensive deals covering free trade, movement of labour, quota, tariffs, etc. The EU does this for all member states, so the Brexiteers had a point.
My point about the USA was that despite Trump's BS he just changed NAFTA. His administration still saw the value in a local trading bloc, so we could have stayed in the EU.
I don't get why we left, but it happened. it's done, so we move on.
Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
Since the UK left, and even before it in the dithering May period, it made lots of deals with other countries that came into force after the BoJo deal was passed and signed.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-trade...n-eu-countries
Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
holzz
Since the UK left, and even before it in the dithering May period, it made lots of deals with other countries that came into force after the BoJo deal was passed and signed.
'Lots of deals with other countries' -indeed. Now tell me what they are worth compared to the UK's membership of the largest free market in the world? And is the deal with Japan better than the EU's deal with Japan? Is a deal with Australia really worth more than the trade we had with the EU? I think you need to do some more 'digging' into the facts, though I accept your point that we have left the EU and must deal with that. Right now, we are not dealing well with it, as the convulsions in Northern Ireland show.
Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
'Lots of deals with other countries' -indeed. Now tell me what they are worth compared to the UK's membership of the largest free market in the world? And is the deal with Japan better than the EU's deal with Japan? Is a deal with Australia really worth more than the trade we had with the EU? I think you need to do some more 'digging' into the facts, though I accept your point that we have left the EU and must deal with that. Right now, we are not dealing well with it, as the convulsions in Northern Ireland show.
Well the government says the terms of the new deals are the same as the EU's. They've just transferred the terms to make things easier. But it's not true to say the UK could sign trade deals as an EU member.
Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
The key point about trade was that the member states of the EU benefit from trade deals whether they are made between Germany and Japan or the UK and China, moreover, this meant that the EU as a trading bloc was more attractive to major investors such as China and Japan than the UK is on its own, hence the claims that the UK's volume of trade and its value will decline as the UK leaves the Single Market. And bear in mind some advocates of Brexit in 2016 said the UK would not sever its ties with the Single Market.
We don't yet know if the UK Govt is going to offer terms of trade to non-EU states that depart from the standards and regulations of the EU, that is, the so-called 'level playing field', and just as the Govt of Boris Johnson has said it will break international law whenever it wants to, so his Govt may renege on all and any agreement to secure a trade deal even if it means the UK lowering its on standards and regulations, for example, on health and safety laws, employment law, and so on.
Fundamentally, the Conservative Govt cannot be trusted, as it is still improvising its way through the regulatory mess that has been created by the EU-UK Trade Agreement.
Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
Another day, another crisis, this time in 'the supply chain' which means petrol stations are closing, as a lack of Carbon Dioxide theaten the security of supplies of Coca Cola, Mincemeat and Shepherd's Pie -but not in Northern Ireland because it is still in the EU Customs Union. As Jonathan Freedland points out, even before this crisis there was a 'dearth' of HGV drivers in the EU, but as the UK has broken away from the EU, the situation here is that much worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...n-botched-deal
Surprise, surprise, while Grant Schapps, a Minister in his Govt expresses no desire to let 'foreigners' in to do work the Brits ought to be doing, Boris Johnson is prepared to renege on his own commitments to 'Global Britain' as an 'independent from the EU' economy, standing alone but proud and hugely successful-
"Ministers are poised to agree an extraordinary post-Brexit U-turn that would see foreign lorry drivers allowed back into the UK to stave off shortages threatening fuel and food supplies.
Boris Johnson ordered a rapid fix on Friday to prevent the crisis escalating. Ministers met in a bid to agree a short-term visa scheme permitting potentially thousands more lorry drivers from abroad to come to the UK.
The prime minister is understood to have weighed in to demand a compromise from his warring cabinet, which was split over the issue, following scenes of chaotic queues at some petrol stations and warnings from suppliers that the shortage of fuel on forecourts could worsen."
https://www.theguardian.com/business...n-worker-visas
I doubt Johnson will keep turning until the logic of seeking a re-entry into the EU's Customs Union and Single Market for the whole of the UK presents itself, and Labour is incapable of even discussing Brexit as the mess that it is, largely because it helped to create it, and is terrified the voters will not like being told they made the wrong decision in 2016, even if many of those who voted Leave now regret it.
We are stuck with this wilderness of delusion, and it is breaking Britain. And the fact is, I don't think Boris Johnson or anyone in his Government cares. He has his eminence, his Cabinet colleagues squabble over who gets to stay in tax-payer funded and plush country mansions at the weekend, while Schapps is on tv in his home with a Union Jack behind him, telling us not to panic. And is anyone going to resign, or take responsibility for this? Nah, not these days. Not bovvered, mate.
Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
You are stuck with this wilderness of delusion?
We seem to be stuck with your delusions as to life in the UK.
Brexit is over. It hasn't broken Britain, it isn't broken Britain and it won't break Britain - sorry to disappoint you and your silly claims.
Re: Brexit: A New Era for the UK?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
obslam
You are stuck with this wilderness of delusion?
We seem to be stuck with your delusions as to life in the UK.
Brexit is over. It hasn't broken Britain, it isn't broken Britain and it won't break Britain - sorry to disappoint you and your silly claims.
Who is deluded? How can Brexit be 'over' when it has only just got started and we will be living with the consequences of this bad decision for years?
The two main 'national' parties have but a slim and amost irrelevant representation in Scotland and Wales, and in case you hadn't noticed it, Brexit is causing chaos in the Northern Ireland Assembly as the DUP loses support and threatens to collapse the power sharing agreement, as its supporters daub violent graffiti on the walls of Belfast because of the Northern Ireland Protocol which has done what the majority of people in NI wanted anyway, to remain in the EU.
Yes, it is true that the pound hasn't collapsed in value as some, myself included, feared after Brexit, though it is worth less than it was before the result of the Referendum, indeed, that the FT can report that because of 'receding fears over Brexit', "Foreign investors bought a record-breaking volume of UK government debt over the past year, helping to fund the unprecedented levels of borrowing during the Covid-19 pandemic."
https://www.ft.com/content/8552ee27-...d-7dd7d443ed10
Is this what Global Britain means- a reliance on foreign investment when the Brits you work with in the City can't be bothered to invest in their own country? I thought it was supposed to be about free enterprise and free markets, yet those foreign investors seem to have more confidence in the UK than your City chums with their Union Jack underpants, and just as most of our Train Operating Companies are owned by companies owned by foreign States, so the most recent boost to investment in the UK came from the Govt of the UAE, about as remote from free enterprise as you can get. With the State here having to bail out failing companes, I think even you will admit that your Global Britain campaign is made up mostly of State rather than Private Investment, but wasn't it Sir John Redwood who advised his clients to invest in the EU rather than the UK?
Broken dreams, though for some in the real world is much like the Chief Executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce who wrote to Boris Johnson
"...asking him to tackle problems caused by Brexit said he is yet to receive a reply.James Ramsbotham, chief executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce (NECC), set out some of the issues which include a shortage of truck drivers, confusion over customs declarations and delays in transporting goods.
A survey of the NECC’s almost 2,500 members found three quarters of businesses had been negatively impacted by leaving the EU, he said.
The chamber said this was backed up by the Government’s own trade statistics which revealed a 37% drop in export and import trade."
https://www.independent.co.uk/busine...-b1899305.html
Oops, what happened there? Did we just stumble on the reality doorstep?
