Brexit discussion thread IV

kowtow

Leroy42 wrote: »

I am not playing the man, I am trying to work out the reasoning behind the path he is taking.

Every indicator points to this being the wrong path, certainly economically, for the UK. Now it is easy to dismiss the economic impact when it won't impact one personally. Like wars, politicians and kings make the decisions but the soldiers on the front line pay the price.

Look at it this way. Before Brexit, who was JRM? A backbencher, nothing of note. Now he is in the frame to be the leader of the Tory party. Just like Boris, he made a calculated decision on which way to go. He was all in favor of a second vote when asking for a brexit vote, but now its all anti-democratic and against the will of the people.

You dismiss the advantages that the likes of Murdoch etc can bestow on people. Get in the right places and you are sorted for life. He is already independently wealthy so becoming an MP must be because he wants to make the UK a better place. So to do that he has decided to ignore all the advice from experts on go with this plan.

And what is he saying that will outweigth these economic costs? Sovereingty? Ability to make laws. Yet he has never been able to articulate, and one thing he is very good at is articulating his position, beyond vague notions of what that actually means. What laws are so horrible? What has the EU forced the UK do to?

So I am judging him on what I know from him. Which is that whilst he claims that economics has nothing to do with it, he has made sure that he has at least some of his earning power protected from any ill effects. He has been unable to say what the other benefits are. He has been unable to say how the NI question will be resolved? He has been unable to show how the general public will actually be better off.

I think your post is a very reasoned one.

First off, I really don't think this has anything to do with leadership ambition and I don't think it's opportunistic. In the 1990's he was hugely anti-Maastricht and IIRC his argument was that once Britain's laws were inextricably intertwined with Europe's it would be very difficult if not impossible to extricate from the EU. Once that was the case British sovereignty could only be eroded.

And you are absolutely right - why can he, of all people, not articulate the advantages of sovereignty per se. rather than simply economic freedom? I can't answer that except to observe that it is a very real preoccupation not just of British (anti-Brexit) politicians but - overwhelmingly - amongst those of every station in life who voted for Brexit.

Perhaps the simplest answer is that these questions are not rational ones, and that they demand - and result in - a partly emotional response which is very difficult to articulate. I don't think that is unexpected and I don't think that we, of all nations, can claim to be immune from it. We don't ask people to justify their vote on economic grounds or to state their qualifications, and nor should we, it's part and parcel of democracy.

Havockk

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

So, a UK government committee has recommended that freedom of movement for EU citizens should end, and be replaced by a Canadian-style points system, based on qualifications, education and language. Irish citizens should be exempt, given our pre-EU agreements in that regard, but would probably meet most requirements in any event. Still, the net effect could well increase non-EU migration, which was hardly the intention of Leave voters in 2016:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/18/brexit-eu-citizens-special-access-migration-advisory-committee

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/18/rightwing-thinktanks-unveil-radical-plan-for-us-uk-brexit-trade-deal-nhs

Cosy up to the US then.

J Mysterio

kowtow wrote: »

I think your post is a very reasoned one.

First off, I really don't think this has anything to do with leadership ambition and I don't think it's opportunistic. In the 1990's he was hugely anti-Maastricht and IIRC his argument was that once Britain's laws were inextricably intertwined with Europe's it would be very difficult if not impossible to extricate from the EU. Once that was the case British sovereignty could only be eroded.

And you are absolutely right - why can he, of all people, not articulate the advantages of sovereignty per se. rather than simply economic freedom? I can't answer that except to observe that it is a very real preoccupation not just of British (anti-Brexit) politicians but - overwhelmingly - amongst those of every station in life who voted for Brexit.

Perhaps the simplest answer is that these questions are not rational ones, and that they demand - and result in - a partly emotional response which is very difficult to articulate. I don't think that is unexpected and I don't think that we, of all nations, can claim to be immune from it. We don't ask people to justify their vote on economic grounds or to state their qualifications, and nor should we, it's part and parcel of democracy.

I think this is a cop out tbh. People like Rees-Mogg have a responsibility to the electorate to be transparent and open about their situation and intentions. To say 'Rees-Mogg is voting to leave because of his feels' is letting him get away with murder. He needs to be accountable.

Trasna1

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

So, a UK government committee has recommended that freedom of movement for EU citizens should end, and be replaced by a Canadian-style points system, based on qualifications, education and language. Irish citizens should be exempt, given our pre-EU agreements in that regard, but would probably meet most requirements in any event. Still, the net effect could well increase non-EU migration, which was hardly the intention of Leave voters in 2016:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/18/brexit-eu-citizens-special-access-migration-advisory-committee

It was the intention of many vote leave voters from immigrant communities. They resented the preference shown to EU citizens over those from the India and Africa.

Havockk

Trasna1 wrote: »

It was the intention of many vote leave voters from immigrant communities. They resented the preference shown to EU citizens over those from the India and Africa.

How will hose voters react when they start to dismantle the NHS in a post-brexit world?

J Mysterio

I'm sure May will be very pleased with the findings of the Migration Advisory Committee:

"Key myths on the negative impacts of EU immigration have been blown apart by a major report commissioned by the government."

"The document found EU citizens have little impact on UK workers’ wages, pay more in taxes, have no adverse impact on young Britons’ schooling, are not linked to increasing crime and contribute “much more” to the NHS than they consume."

"It did highlight how immigration helped push up house prices, but concluded the rise is directly linked to a broader failure to build new homes."

....

"the report concluding that EU migrants contribute £2,300 more to the exchequer each year in net terms than the average adult."

"Over their lifetimes, they pay in £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits, while the average UK citizen’s net lifetime contribution is zero."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/immigration-myths-brexit-leave-government-report-eu-citizens-migrants-tax-income-a8543121.html

J Mysterio

Its actually hilarious. The UK gov finally get some commissioned reports in and they show that the EU citizens are a benefit to the UK and contribute more than UK citizens.

Could they maybe have commisioned some of these reports before the referendum? Before Article 50? What a damn shower of wasters and incompetents.

And still peoples 'feelings' somehow subordinate facts

J Mysterio

'Inside no.10' Special with Nick Robinson

An interesting look 'behind the scenes'.

demfad

JRM is a liar, a charlatan who will make vast swathes of money out of Brexit via his disaster capitalist company. Just yesterday he called Carney head of the BOE a 'wailing Banshee'. Remember him and his ERG group are taking advice from white supremacist Steve Bannon.

News today that BMW and the channel tunnel will close for a month after (no-deal) Brexit.
More news that the UK car industry only can claim 25% of parts made in UK so will be outtside any future FTAs the UK will make. (UK gov had claimed 45% falsely counting components that were bought in UK but manufactured abroad).

Look at this: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/18/rightwing-thinktanks-unveil-radical-plan-for-us-uk-brexit-trade-deal-nhs

A radical blueprint for a free trade deal between the UK and the US that would see the NHS opened to foreign competition, a bonfire of consumer and environmental regulations and freedom of movement between the two countries for workers, is to be launched by prominent Brexiters.

The blueprint will be seen as significant because of the close links between the organisations behind it and the UK secretary for international trade, Liam Fox, and the US president, Donald Trump.

Its publication follows a week of policy launches by the European Research Group of Conservative MPs designed to pressurise the prime minister into “chucking Chequers”, her softer Brexit proposal, in favour of a harder, clean break from the European Union.

The text of the new trade deal has been prepared by the Initiative for Free Trade (IFT) – a thinktank founded by the longtime Eurosceptic MEP Daniel Hannan, one of the leaders of Vote Leave – and the Cato Institute, a rightwing libertarian thinktank in the US founded and funded by the fossil fuel magnates and major political donors the Koch family....
.......
It would remove tariffs and throw out the precautionary principle that has guided much EU regulation on GM foods, chlorine-washed chicken, hormones in meat, pesticides and chemicals in cosmetics.

This tells us what Brexit IS:

A power grab by the .1%

It always WAS this as Liam Fox was hired by May for precisely this reason (his contacts with US billionaires via The Atlantic Bridge).
The same fossil fueling, climate denying, oligarch making, regulation slashing, guys are behind this as behind Trump, laundering hateful far-right ideology to fool voters into supporting this.

These twin coups fully backed by the propaganda machine of the Mercers in partnership with the information warfare capibilities of the Federation of Russia.

The appointment of Fox means that May, or (rather those who appointed her) always had a hard Brexit/US deal £££$$$ for the .1% as the outcome.

Enzokk

In the run-up to the conferences there will be a lot of interesting stories to ponder over the next couple of weeks. The Guardian will have a special report tomorrow on the Labour Brexit strategy so it will be interesting to see if we learn anything new about where they stand or how they will go about it.

In the mean time we have this story which shows what a lot of us has suspected. There is an realistic element in Labour that talks about a customs union to keep the border open between us and NI. They also talk about being able to do their own trade deals, but one step at a time I suppose. At least they have not ruled out the customs union.

Another interesting preview is that Keir Starmer almost quit the shadow cabinet due to being blindsided by Corbyn and their Brexit plans. So it seems like for once Corbyn will be in a fight with some of his own MPs and the unions on Brexit. It seems very clear now he favours a hard Brexit where he can implement his ideas, we will have to see if he is persuaded to change his mind by those that he claims to represent.

Keir Starmer clashed with Corbyn on Brexit 'to brink of resignation'

Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, was pushed to the brink of resignation early this year after Jeremy Corbyn and his allies tried to kick his customs union plan into the long grass, the Guardian can reveal.

Labour’s Brexit policy has evolved over the past 18 months through a series of painstaking negotiations between key players at the top of the party, the most fraught of which came at a stormy meeting of the “Brexit subcommittee” early this year.

Corbyn’s close allies ambushed Starmer with a paper which shelved the decision on joining a customs union, a policy he had been pushing privately for weeks.

And another interesting tidbit in the article, Labour will be playing a game with Brexit and the second referendum. They don't want to give Theresa May any support from the ERG due to their backing for a second referendum. This would make sense with her proclamations the past week or so about it would be either her Brexit or no Brexit. In the meantime people will be worried about their livelihoods while the politicians play their silly little games.

So their thinking is that by backing a second referendum will actually unite the Conservatives behind the Chequers plan.

Labour strategists are sceptical about the idea of a new EU referendum, fearing that it would risk alienating leave voters and could play into Theresa May’s hands, by giving hardline Tory rebels a reason not to vote down her deal.

“The only way that her deal is going to get voted down, is if some of the European Research Group (ERG) vote against it – and they’re not voting against it if they believe one of the options then is a second referendum. The surefire way to get the ERG to vote with the government is to talk about a second referendum,” said a senior Labour figure.

judeboy101

So UK officials will do the protecting of the eu customs border? Do Russian officials do likewise at the polish border with kalinagrad or the Russians with the Latvian border?I'm failing to see the difference.

kowtow

demfad wrote: »

JRM is a liar, a charlatan who will make vast swathes of money out of Brexit via his disaster capitalist company. Just yesterday he called Carney head of the BOE a 'wailing Banshee'. Remember him and his ERG group are taking advice from white supremacist Steve Bannon.

News today that BMW and the channel tunnel will close for a month after (no-deal) Brexit.
More news that the UK car industry only can claim 25% of parts made in UK so will be outtside any future FTAs the UK will make. (UK gov had claimed 45% falsely counting components that were bought in UK but manufactured abroad).

Look at this: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/18/rightwing-thinktanks-unveil-radical-plan-for-us-uk-brexit-trade-deal-nhs



This tells us what Brexit IS:

A power grab by the .1%

It always WAS this as Liam Fox was hired by May for precisely this reason (his contacts with US billionaires via The Atlantic Bridge).
The same fossil fueling, climate denying, oligarch making, regulation slashing, guys are behind this as behind Trump, laundering hateful far-right ideology to fool voters into supporting this.

These twin coups fully backed by the propaganda machine of the Mercers in partnership with the information warfare capibilities of the Federation of Russia.

The appointment of Fox means that May, or (rather those who appointed her) always had a hard Brexit/US deal £££$$$ for the .1% as the outcome.

1. BMW always closes for a month a year for maintenance. All it has done is bring forward that routine shutdown.

2. Once again, maybe just give us one piece of evidence of a position taken by JRM's funds which will benefit disproportionately from a hard Brexit.

3. Presumably if the "appointment" of Fox and May was designed to ensure a hard Brexit the Chequers deal is some sort of deliberate ruse designed to be unpalatable to Europe and to ensure a hard Brexit but to equally leapfrog over the dangerous possibility of any kind of Canada plus deal or any other outcome.... ????


For once it appears that the conspiracy theories are on the Remain side, which is a bit odd considering the nutters are all supposed to be with the Brexiteers.

Leroy42

kowtow wrote: »

1. BMW always closes for a month a year for maintenance. All it has done is bring forward that routine shutdown.

2. Once again, maybe just give us one piece of evidence of a position taken by JRM's funds which will benefit disproportionately from a hard Brexit.

3. Presumably if the "appointment" of Fox and May was designed to ensure a hard Brexit the Chequers deal is some sort of deliberate ruse designed to be unpalatable to Europe and to ensure a hard Brexit but to equally leapfrog over the dangerous possibility of any kind of Canada plus deal or any other outcome.... ????


For once it appears that the conspiracy theories are on the Remain side, which is a bit odd considering the nutters are all supposed to be with the Brexiteers.

1. So BMW are changing their normal operations on account of Brexit.
2. I already did and you dismissed them as not paying enough.
3. Chequers is a mess. It is only being kept alive because the EU is trying to be the adult in the room and give the UK the time to come to its senses. It mocks a complete mockery of both the EU position and the UK red lines. The fact that TM then allowed amendments to be placed in the House so that it becomes undeliverable leads me to think it is a gamble so that the EU will be forced to reject it and so Hard Brexit happens "by accident". Ins't that the line HRG are going with, nothing to do with us, just an unfortunate accident.

kowtow

Leroy42 wrote: »

2. I already did and you dismissed them as not paying enough.

Directorships and Speaking engagements? I don't see that as "Swathes of money via his disaster capital company"? - not to mention the prominent remainers (like Tony Blair) who really have turned directorships, consultancies, and speaking engagements into the kind of money that used to only be earned by fund positions..

Besides, has JRM actually taken any directorships related to Brexit? I don't see any, just family holding companies and his non-exec income from Somerset.

Every time he gets a fee of over £100 for a speaking engagement he seems to give it to charity - and there aren't that many of those!

3. Chequers is a mess. It is only being kept alive because the EU is trying to be the adult in the room and give the UK the time to come to its senses. It mocks a complete mockery of both the EU position and the UK red lines. The fact that TM then allowed amendments to be placed in the House so that it becomes undeliverable leads me to think it is a gamble so that the EU will be forced to reject it and so Hard Brexit happens "by accident". Ins't that the line HRG are going with, nothing to do with us, just an unfortunate accident.

That Chequers is a mess we can agree, but try as I might I can't see it as an elaborate gamble to get a hard Brexit. If there is any kind of fix going on, IMO, it is most likely that Chequers is something close to a done deal save for a form of words on Ireland, or alternatively that both the EU & TM have agreed that once Ireland is sorted everything else can be pushed into the transition period provided the UK have stumped up the cash... in other words that Chequers is just a complex compromisey sort of paper that everyone can complain about while the really important things are dealt with for the time being. It does have the redeeming characteristic that everyone seems to hate it equally.

Water John

Chequers a done deal with whom? Not the EU, Parliament or even the Tory Party.

smurgen

The likes of JRM should be laughed out of politics.he is a snakey,morally bankrupt weirdo and a false intellect.full of his own pretentiousness and talks absolute nonesense , short article sums him up https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/tory-backbench-mp-jacob-rees-mogg-failed-to-declare-interests-9923362.html

listermint

Are people in here actually defending mogg and his conflict of interest investment vehicle.


Really... Really.

Now I know there is professional story deflectors engaged on boards.

Water John

Kowtow is real and very much a free market liberal supporter and lives in Cork too. Having said that I disagree with him, most of the time.

listermint

Water John wrote: »

Kowtow is real and very much a free market liberal supporter and lives in Cork too. Having said that I disagree with him, most of the time.

None of this makes one non professional at disinformation though.

kowtow

listermint wrote: »

None of this makes one non professional at disinformation though.

What can I say, it's a difficult year. The milk price is poor, and the girls are eyeing up what there is in the clamp with a hungry look in their eye. You can't give away poorer bullocks.

When that Russian fella rung me up I thought it would be an easy way out..

Water John

Barnier is back speaking English. He must be more hopeful. Putting more flesh on the mechanism for checks for NI.
Looks like that is what will happen.

Enzokk

Here is a report on Barnier and what he has had to say about the border.

Michel Barnier rebuffs UK calls for flexibility on Irish border

Michel Barnier has rebuffed British calls for the European Union to change its stance on the contested issue of the Irish border, as he said a “moment of truth” was fast approaching on a Brexit deal.

The EU’s chief negotiator said the bloc was ready “to improve” its proposal on avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland, but stopped short of accepting British ideas for compromise, after the Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, called on the EU to show flexibility.

Here is some of the fudge being served on what will turn out to be a border but not a border.

Barnier said the EU was working to improve its proposal, adding that the problem had been caused by “the UK’s decision to leave the EU, its single market and the customs union”. Seeking to counter British criticism that the EU plan eroded UK sovereignty, he said: “What we talking about here is not a land border, not a sea border, it is a set of technical checks and controls. We respect the territorial integrity of the UK and we respect the conditional order of the UK.”

So there will not be a border, but goods will have to undergo technical checks and controls. I guess this is what he meant by tempering the language on the border. The UK will not have a border, but there will be checks between NI and the UK basically seeing that the GFA will ensure that the Irish and NI border will be mostly open.

An Ciarraioch

Reading Tony Connelly's report on Barnier's speech, and him talking about checks being done "away from the Border", it wasn't entirely clear whether North-South or East-West was implied:

https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0918/994437-brexit_coveney/

Of course, he does state at the beginning that it's goods travelling between GB and NI that will be checked.

Enzokk

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Reading Tony Connelly's report on Barnier's speech, and him talking about checks being done "away from the Border", it wasn't entirely clear whether North-South or East-West was implied:

https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0918/994437-brexit_coveney/

Anybody have a clear idea how the GFA would influence this? Those areas mentioned in the agreement that will remain aligned to support the all island economy will surely mean any checks will have to be East-West instead of North-South. I could be wrong though.

Water John

My understanding of what heard from Barnier was east west UK and NI. Just spinning the original plan in different language.

Capt'n Midnight

The new EU-Japan trade deal removes most of the advantages of having Japanese car factories in the UK.

The senior vice president of Honda Europe has warned that a no-deal Brexit would cost his company tens of millions of pounds.

"In terms of administration, we'd probably be looking at something like sixty odd thousand additional bits of documentation we would have to provide to get product to and from Europe,"
...
EU customers buy about €15bn ($18.5bn; £13bn) worth of British-made cars per year, accounting for 53% of the UK's vehicle exports.

Note : MINI are moving their maintenance shutdown to the month of Brexit. So should have low impact.

Jaguar are moving 1,000 workers to a three day week. It's not just Brexit, there are upsets over diesel changes too. And I'd love a three day week on normal pay.

Strazdas

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Reading Tony Connelly's report on Barnier's speech, and him talking about checks being done "away from the Border", it wasn't entirely clear whether North-South or East-West was implied:

https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0918/994437-brexit_coveney/

Of course, he does state at the beginning that it's goods travelling between GB and NI that will be checked.

Tom Newton Dunn of The Sun said on Sky News in the last hour that he thinks Barnier is talking about the GB-NI route and the British press have completely misinterpreted his comments.

Capt'n Midnight

J Mysterio wrote: »

Its actually hilarious. The UK gov finally get some commissioned reports in and they show that the EU citizens are a benefit to the UK and contribute more than UK citizens.

Could they maybe have commisioned some of these reports before the referendum? Before Article 50? What a damn shower of wasters and incompetents.

And still peoples 'feelings' somehow subordinate facts

speaking of which
https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0917/994342-brexit-northern-ireland-purchases/

The report on trade volumes between Northern Ireland and Britain was requested by the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier as part of the ongoing negotiations over the backstop to avoid a hard land border on the island of Ireland.

So why did the EU have to request them ?

Northern Ireland businesses purchased £11 billion of goods from Britain compared to £2 billion from the Republic of Ireland and £4.1 billion from the rest of the world in 2016, according to figures supplied by the UK government to the European Commission, and seen by RTÉ News.

The devil is in the detail, and most of the stuff is from large companies so trusted trader will take a large chunk.

Animals and farm machinery are already subject to inspection so no change there.

Water John

Barnier got annoyed when the UK weren't supplying the figures. That held up the EU side getting more detail on their proposals.

Peregrinus

judeboy101 wrote: »

So UK officials will do the protecting of the eu customs border? Do Russian officials do likewise at the polish border with kalinagrad or the Russians with the Latvian border?I'm failing to see the difference.

The difference would be that the UK would be doing this under an agreement which confers considerable advantages on the UK, so they would have a self-interest in doing it properly, so as not to jeopardise the agreement.