Brexit Discussion Thread VI

LeinsterDub

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

I've googled, but it's not clear...

Does anyone know if A50 is withdrawn would HOC have to vote on it first, or can May just send a letter to Brussels?

May can do it herself, however it's stated in law that the UK will leave on the 29th of March. If it's not repealed it could lead to a constitutional crisis.

Necro

Tell me how wrote: »

I've been thinking about this also.

I'm no student of history but I wonder if it could be said that most significant changes in political structures and major players were initiated by some form of conflict.

Scary thought if so. I'm sure some parties develop organically but usually in parallel with the major players. While many are despondent with what is going on in the UK, it remains to be seen if it results in change. We saw the death of the PD's in Ireland in 2009 after they were eviscerated in the 2007 election.

Think people also though that many party loyalists become entrenched and so are resistant to change even though the outside perception might be that they should (DUP for instance).

I just don't see how this gets resolved under the current chicken coop system that is the HoC. Even IF there is a Crash Out, and IF there is a trade deal negotiated - I don't see how any of it can possibly favour the UK.

It's why I just can't see a No Deal happening.

Tell me how

Necro wrote: »

I just don't see how this gets resolved under the current chicken coop system that is the HoC. Even IF there is a Crash Out, and IF there is a trade deal negotiated - I don't see how any of it can possibly favour the UK.

It's why I just can't see a No Deal happening.

That will be some debate and vote if she moves to repeal A50.
Some of the speeches will be fairly no holds barred at that stage

ancapailldorcha

Necro wrote: »

Here's the thing that I wonder most regarding the possibility of a No Deal Brexit (and apologies if this has been discussed before).

Given that the HoC can't even decide what direction to take with a Crash Out looming, how on earth can any of the parties - Labour, Tories - whoever is in charge in the aftermath - be trusted or deemed competent to negotiate trade deals with other nations?

I can't say where I got this from but DoIT's current objective is trying to mitigate as much damage as possible. The issue won't be signing new trade deals, it's going to be trying to preserve as much of the current deals as possible as other countries will be angling for renegotiations given that the EU negotiated them on its members' behalf.

Even the Ukraine is looking for a renegotiation:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-ukraine-welcome-progress-on-trade-relationship

Necro

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I can't say where I got this from but DoIT's current objective is trying to mitigate as much damage as possible. The issue won't be signing new trade deals, it's going to be trying to preserve as much of the current deals as possible as other countries will be angling for renegotiations given that the EU negotiated them on its members' behalf.

Even the Ukraine is looking for a renegotiation:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-ukraine-welcome-progress-on-trade-relationship

Jaysus, that could be even worse if the current attitude to the WA is carried over into negotiations over trade. Can you imagine the current rabble and their rhetoric towards a Ukrainian trade deal that is in any way productive?

And that's Ukraine. The US and China will destroy them in negotiations, even if the EU doesn't (and that will likely be the easier one of the three big deals)

ancapailldorcha

Necro wrote: »

Jaysus, that could be even worse if the current attitude to the WA is carried over into negotiations over trade. Can you imagine the current rabble and their rhetoric towards a Ukrainian trade deal that is in any way productive?

And that's Ukraine. The US and China will destroy them in negotiations, even if the EU doesn't (and that will likely be the easier one of the three big deals)

Well, the DoIT is brand new. The civil service is completely new to negotiating trade deals so it gets worse whereas the US and China are much more experienced in this regard. The cheap talk of Trump's Scottish mother will evaporate when it comes to negotiations.

road_high

jmayo wrote: »

Ah come on be fair.
JCB is what is left of what was once a great indigenous British vehicle manufacturing industry.

The rest from their glory years, when they were even sometimes world leading design, have either disappeared entirely or have been bought up by foreigners.
And the shock and horror of it sometimes the foreigners hail from former colonies.

Next week he will be speaking from Morgan's plant.

JCB is one of the few UK companies that is not so heavily dependent and integrated into the European market. EU isn’t their biggest market as logically enough being developed regions there wouldn’t be the same demand for construction equipment. It’s a very rare example of a major company being pro Brexit- I’ve no doubt there’s a fair smattering of ideology thrown in too, owner is probably one of the English country squire types

wiggle16

Necro wrote: »

Here's the thing that I wonder most regarding the possibility of a No Deal Brexit (and apologies if this has been discussed before).

Given that the HoC can't even decide what direction to take with a Crash Out looming, how on earth can any of the parties - Labour, Tories - whoever is in charge in the aftermath - be trusted or deemed competent to negotiate trade deals with other nations?

Most of the countries that would yield a return to some form of normality after an extended period of hardship and chaos in the UK must be licking their lips at the thought of dealing with... May (Probably unlikely), Corbyn (also unlikely) - or whoever is PM/Foreign Secretary.

How will it ever be resolved without an entire revamp of UK politics?

Agreed! I've been thinking the same thing for a long time:

wiggle16 wrote: »

There's a certain amount of irony in the fact that, even though the entire idea of Brexit (sans the xenophobia that spawned it) is that the UK will be free to strike its own super-amazing trade deals "across the globe" as if the East India Tea Company will be setting sail again, they barely managed to negotiate this one, after two and a half years, and they don't even want it.

I know this deal is more than just a trade deal in that it's to set out the UK's future legal relationship with the EU and the border is a fatal complication, but in this case they were negotiating with an economic power that doesn't want to hurt them or exploit them. How are they going to fare against the US or China etc when this shítshow is the best they could manage? They are seriously overestimating their own clout and paying no heed to the fact that other nations want good trade deals for themselves, not for the UK.

They have lost any credibility they had previously, and permanently damaged their relationship with Europe. Whatever happens in March (and I think it's no deal or a somehow a sudden revocation of Article 50, there isn't time to do anything else now) they are worse off than they were in 2016.

road_high

sandbelter wrote: »

Nope, I think your underestimate the stakes the game is being played on the continent, they have bigger fish to fry.

In Greece I think is still on one pain killer per surgical procedure, Spain still hasn't recovered from the crash, and the right wing is on a rise in Europe, so they are playing for much higher states.

From a European perspective Ireland is a country that deals with its problems and moves on (that might comes a shock to some of you). To boot we have the second highest highest GDP per capita in the Eurozone.

We'll be paying for NI and also more to the EU, and frankly its a good problem to have, without the EU we wouldn't be this well off.

They're be diplomatic support, the odd grant, but I expect we'll do 97% of the heavy lifting. We're seen to have the money ....that how 4% of the EU population ending up with 90% of the EU bailout bill.

David McWilliams was talking lately about re unification and his point is that Irish GDP has been rising pretty fast as the economy expands further, the relative burden of the NI subsidy is getting smaller and smaller relative to us thus we’d be more easily able to absorb it. Plus there would be an eventual economic dividend as NI itself is definitely not performing to its full potential under London.

Strazdas

road_high wrote: »

David McWilliams was talking lately about re unification and his point is that Irish GDP has been rising pretty fast as the economy expands further, the relative burden of the NI subsidy is getting smaller and smaller relative to us thus we’d be more easily able to absorb it. Plus there would be an eventual economic dividend as NI itself is definitely not performing to its full potential under London.

This is a key point. People are assuming NI would carry on being a subsidised region of Ireland in the same way it had been a subsidised region of the UK, but unification would be a complete game changer and would radically alter the NI economy in a different direction.

road_high

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Well, the DoIT is brand new. The civil service is completely new to negotiating trade deals so it gets worse whereas the US and China are much more experienced in this regard. The cheap talk of Trump's Scottish mother will evaporate when it comes to negotiations.

Trade deals by their very nature are brutal and protracted- just look at NAFTA and the recent name change to appease Trump- and that’s with three major economies that neighbor each other, share cultural similarities and deep historic ties...can only imagine the difficulties that’ll arise with some English Tory toffs talking down to much more robust economies!!
The UK will be coming at them all from a point of desperation whereas it’ll be incidental to most of the other countries. I guess they still have such an entrenched notion of superiority going on in their national psyche that no one can see this!

Necro

road_high wrote: »

Trade deals by their very nature are brutal and protracted- just look at NAFTA and the recent name change to appease Trump- and that’s with three major economies that neighbor each other, share cultural similarities and deep historic ties...can only imagine the difficulties that’ll arise with some English Tory toffs talking down to much more robust economies!!
The UK will be coming at them all from a point of desperation whereas it’ll be incidental to most of the other countries. I guess they still have such an entrenched notion of superiority going on in their national psyche that no one can see this!

Yeah this is kinda exactly what I was thinking tbh. Particularly the bolded part. I just don't see how anything gets negotiated or even kept as is with the way the current elected PMs speak about other nations.

The vitriol towards the EU is just one example, their ignorance of issues in NI another.

Unless there is radical political change it could spell decades of carnage for the UK economy.

road_high

Strazdas wrote: »

This is a key point. People are assuming NI would carry on being a subsidised region of Ireland in the same way it had been a subsidised region of the UK, but unification would be a complete game changer and would radically alter the NI economy in a different direction.

The work IDA Ireland could do in NI would be phenomenal really. As would same be for the tourist industry.
We decry our govt and state bodies regularly but they’ve done a fine job promoting investment into Ireland and brand Ireland the past 25 years. All in all we are a well run country and very stable. NI is a pure basket case by comparison

Donald Trump

road_high wrote: »

The work IDA Ireland could do in NI would be phenomenal really. As would same be for the tourist industry.
We decry our govt and state bodies regularly but they’ve done a fine job promoting investment into Ireland and brand Ireland the past 25 years. All in all we are a well run country and very stable. NI is a pure basket case by comparison

Tourism is already largely marketed or coordinated via All-Ireland bodies is it not?

Bit cynical

wiggle16 wrote: »

Figures can be bandied around about how much or how little of our trade is with the UK, but as things stand, 50% of our beef and 56% of our pork exports go to the UK - there's a lot of jobs in and connected with those industries (not to mention the actual communities that depend on them). If the UK and the EU begin to hardball each other on trade, and they almost certainly will and at the UK's instigation, we will be the ones to suffer. And that's without considering the practical impact of a hard border on the island itself. Out of the EU 27 we have by far the most to lose from Brexit.

Which is what makes it even more frustrating to listen to the bollox and jingoism put out by the UK media, the carry on in Westminster and the unlettered Rule Britannia crap coming out of the mouths of people such as on Question Time the other night etc - their ignorance and lack of any foresight is going to have a direct effect on us. There's no way to counter that, it's their business, but it's infuriating.

But, of course, at the same time it is not the UK's job to look after the Irish economy.

Capt'n Midnight

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Even the Ukraine is looking for a renegotiation:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-ukraine-welcome-progress-on-trade-relationship

The EFTA have a Joint Declaration on Cooperation with Mongolia


How does a Hard Brexit and falling out to WTO terms affect stuff like UK mining companies operating abroad ? There's lots of potential gotcha's with Brexit that people just didn't think about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolia%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_relations

Strazdas

Donald Trump wrote: »

Tourism is already largely marketed or coordinated via All-Ireland bodies is it not?

It is and in fairness NI tourism is starting to become a thing. I read somewhere recently that the Giants Causeway is one of the most visited attractions on the island of Ireland.

road_high

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I can't say where I got this from but DoIT's current objective is trying to mitigate as much damage as possible. The issue won't be signing new trade deals, it's going to be trying to preserve as much of the current deals as possible as other countries will be angling for renegotiations given that the EU negotiated them on its members' behalf.

Even the Ukraine is looking for a renegotiation:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-ukraine-welcome-progress-on-trade-relationship

Sounds like the Ukraine just want to continue on as per EU agreement already there- does that say it all about the folly of Brexit and it’s sheer pointlessness

Capt'n Midnight

road_high wrote: »

David McWilliams was talking lately about re unification and his point is that Irish GDP has been rising pretty fast as the economy expands further, the relative burden of the NI subsidy is getting smaller and smaller relative to us thus we’d be more easily able to absorb it. Plus there would be an eventual economic dividend as NI itself is definitely not performing to its full potential under London.

The only significant difference to the economy on either side of the border is whether Dublin or Westminster / Stornmount made the decisions.

Right now the economic differences are close to those between East and West Germany. Population ratios are similar too.

ThePanjandrum

Tell me how wrote: »

That will be some debate and vote if she moves to repeal A50.
Some of the speeches will be fairly no holds barred at that stage

She couldn't try it too early, if she did then many of her MPs together with the DUP would vote against it - as would Labour because then Corbyn would go for another vote of no confidence which she could well lose. If she left it late then she would face a split in the Conservatives with many of the local association members joining the new party.

ThePanjandrum

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

The civil service is completely new to negotiating trade deals.

It really isn't, it negotiated all of the UK's trade deals before the EU decided that all negotiation should be in its own hands. This centalisation of agencies is one of the ways in which EU member states have been losing sovereignty.

However, the UK can reassemble a team of experienced negotiators by advertising attractive positions, the negotiators do not have an exclusive attachment to their own country.

Capt'n Midnight

road_high wrote: »

Sounds like the Ukraine just want to continue on as per EU agreement already there- does that say it all about the folly of Brexit and it’s sheer pointlessness

The EU trade deals are an average. There's 28 countries so some deals will suit the UK , others won't.

The UK just won't have the time to do haggle through 70 deals so they may just have to accept the terms of the deals the EU negotiated that may have suited France or Poland or Italy more than it suited them.

If only because that's the only way they'll the have resources to negotiate deals with the countries that think the existing EU deal favoured the UK too much. Like everyone who exports meat to the continent and expects their tariff free quota to shrink.

ThePanjandrum

wiggle16 wrote: »

Scotland has been shown definitively now that they do not have a voice in the UK.

Actually, a Scottish person has more of a say than an English person as they are overrepresented in the UK parliament. The only reason that you can claim that they do not have a say is because the Referendum was held on a UK wide basis and the majority of the UK voters decided to leave the EU.

road_high

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The EU trade deals are an average. There's 28 countries so some deals will suit the UK , others won't.

The UK just won't have the time to do haggle through 70 deals so they may just have to accept the terms of the deals the EU negotiated that may have suited France or Poland or Italy more than it suited them.

If only because that's the only way they'll the have resources to negotiate deals with the countries that think the existing EU deal favoured the UK too much. Like everyone who exports meat to the continent and expects their tariff free quota to shrink.

Not really “taking back control” though is it?!
I’d sssumed the EU trade deals were so bad that re negotiation would be a must no 1 priority of brexiters...but it seems putting a Uk sticker over the EU ones will do !

ThePanjandrum

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

So explain why haven't they done so in last 2 years? EU negotiators have been running circles around UK ones
Your proclamation has been shown to be false by reality

Because we cannot negotiate trade details until we know on what basis we are negotiating. If, for example, the EU and UK decided to be in a customs union then all negotiations with other countries would have to start again. Nevertheless, the UK has recruited some negotiators although they have not been used in the talks so far. Up to now, May and Oily Robbins have controlled the UK negotiations and they are both Remainers and incompetent.

A Dub in Glasgo

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

Because we cannot negotiate trade details until we know on what basis we are negotiating. If, for example, the EU and UK decided to be in a customs union then all negotiations with other countries would have to start again. Nevertheless, the UK has recruited some negotiators although they have not been used in the talks so far. Up to now, May and Oily Robbins have controlled the UK negotiations and they are both Remainers and incompetent.

The UK cannot negotiate trade deals as they are still an EU member

PeadarCo

ThePanjandrum wrote:

Because we cannot negotiate trade details until we know on what basis we are negotiating. If, for example, the EU and UK decided to be in a customs union then all negotiations with other countries would have to start again. Nevertheless, the UK has recruited some negotiators although they have not been used in the talks so far. Up to now, May and Oily Robbins have controlled the UK negotiations and they are both Remainers and incompetent.

Is not that the trade negotiationers are incompetent. The issue is that it will be years before a trade agreement is signed between the UK and EU. Remember we haven't got to the negotiation of a long term trade deal. This stage is the easy bit. So the problem that you have identified will remain in the medium term.

Necro

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

Because we cannot negotiate trade details until we know on what basis we are negotiating. If, for example, the EU and UK decided to be in a customs union then all negotiations with other countries would have to start again. Nevertheless, the UK has recruited some negotiators although they have not been used in the talks so far. Up to now, May and Oily Robbins have controlled the UK negotiations and they are both Remainers and incompetent.

So who do you want negotiating your deals?

Corbyn? Rees Mogg? Johnson?

The Brexiteer crowd aren't exactly shrewd negotiators themselves, as proven by a raft of failed Brexit Secretaries.

Throwing money at a team of 'highly experienced negotiators' is really just passing the buck... I mean what are MPs elected to do then, pontificate and talk extreme nonsense in the HoC?

road_high

Necro wrote: »

So who do you want negotiating your deals?


Throwing money at a team of 'highly experienced negotiators' is really just passing the buck... I mean what are MPs elected to do then, pontificate and talk extreme nonsense in the HoC?

Trade deals are as much about political alliances and relationships as they are about economic negotiations- just see Trump and Nafta for evidence of this- you can have all the high paid faceless negotiators you want but if the political capital isn’t there in the first place, they’re very difficult...I see very little evidence of that to date, just a little vague and faintly warm lip service from the US or Australia.

LeinsterDub

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

Because we cannot negotiate trade details until we know on what basis we are negotiating. If, for example, the EU and UK decided to be in a customs union then all negotiations with other countries would have to start again. Nevertheless, the UK has recruited some negotiators although they have not been used in the talks so far. Up to now, May and Oily Robbins have controlled the UK negotiations and they are both Remainers and incompetent.

What exactly do you think better negotiators would achieve? Given the red lines are set by the PM or are you suggesting different red lines too?