Brexit discussion thread XIII (Please read OP before posting)

Rolo2010

https://mobile.twitter.com/johnredwood/status/1327142560406630409

The EU single market has damaged our economy, crippling us with a huge trade deficit whilst we have a surplus with the rest of the world. They took our fish, cut our food production and even pushed us into importing electricity. Time to break free and do better.

Low hanging fruit but still. British companies are allowed to fish in Irish waters so I suppose we can also accuse them of stealing another one of our natural resources.

Rolo2010

trellheim wrote: »

Prince Charles and Camilla have just arrived in Berlin for their attendance at German day of remembrance, first royals to do so. Mentioned because it is usually the case to send out the royals when they want to look good.

Does any country in Europe care about that anymore?

Lumen

This is a possibly useful overview of where preparations are at.

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/preparing-brexit-how-ready-uk.pdf

Capt'n Midnight

Rolo2010 wrote: »

Low hanging fruit but still. British companies are allowed to fish in Irish waters so I suppose we can also accuse them of stealing another one of our natural resources.

Fishing rights are a red herring. Most of the fish caught in the UK waters is exported and most of the fish consumed in the UK is imported so unless there's a deal...


Rights to fish in each others waters predate the EU thanks to various Fisheries Conventions.

Since they go back to 1666 when King Charles II gave the rights to fishermen from Bruges to fish in English coastal waters they also predate the UK, and the Kingdom of Great Britain.




And there's the precedent of the Faroe Islands deal where 98% of their exports are seafood and the UK imports 30% of that. Which means the UK should have been in the driving seat when it came to a deal. Instead the Faroese can fish in UK waters but UK boats can't fish in theirs. Because the UK rolled over the Denmark centric EU deal.



And then there's the question of who owns the quotas and the boats and who crews them and where the fish is landed and who doesn't impose the existing rules.


Only 2% of the fish in Scotland is landed by local fishermen, fishing is dominated by big business.

Capt'n Midnight

There are trade deals being done. Countries without them may be marginalised as trading within a bloc is easier. Especially with Rules Of Origin.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is due to be signed shortly.

China, Japan, South Korea, Australia , New Zealand , Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The US is missing thanks to Trump's isolationism and undermining the Trans Pacific Partnership thingy. The UK is missing because amongst other things the negotiations took a decade and the UK is miles away and they aren't a major partner for most of those countries.


Remember the UK will be doing the easiest trade deals ever, sunny uplands, unicorns for all.

Thargor

Nice stroke by the Irish Law Society here, collect the registration fees of thousands of British solicitors hoping to use Ireland as a back door into Europe then slam it in their face:

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/ireland-closes-eu-door-to-british-solicitors/5106387.article

Strazdas

lennymc wrote: »

long time lurker here - thanks to all the regular posters. I have a question - From the EU perspective, what is the path for granting an extension, should one be asked for? Didn't the WA specifically mention July as the cut off for an extension request, and if that is the case, how would the EU grant an extension, whilst abiding by the WA. I know there is the option of an interim period between a new FTA and 1/1/21, but that implies that there is an agreement on a future relationship. Or am I missing something.
Thanks

I've heard that it would be nigh on impossible. I can't remember the precise details but that it would need a whole load of different legal processes to take place and the involvement of the European Parliament as to make it difficult in the extreme and not worth the effort.

Jim2007

Thargor wrote: »

Nice stroke by the Irish Law Society here, collect the registration fees of thousands of British solicitors hoping to use Ireland as a back door into Europe then slam it in their face:

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/ireland-closes-eu-door-to-british-solicitors/5106387.article

Rubbish. The EU killed this off over two years ago.

CelticRambler

Jim2007 wrote: »

Thargor wrote: »

Nice stroke by the Irish Law Society here, collect the registration fees of thousands of British solicitors hoping to use Ireland as a back door into Europe then slam it in their face:

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/ireland-closes-eu-door-to-british-solicitors/5106387.article

Rubbish. The EU killed this off over two years ago.

Not so rubbishy as all that, and not a "stroke" either. I'm in a similar position, and have chosen to maintain my registration in the UK even though I haven't worked there for three years. Doing so gives me the freedom to move to the UK at very short notice (less than 24 hours if necessary) and be fully licensed to work from an existing physical establishment as soon as I arrive. It's not really any different to being required to tell the Irish, the Germans or the Romanians what address I'll be working from if I want to provide the same service there under Freedom of Movement rules.

Naturally, there's a cost-benefit assessment to be done, but the requirement to work from an office physically located in the EU is no big deal. For the sake of half a day's fees, maintaining a dual registration makes sense for any firm doing business regularly in the EU. I suspect the biggest obstacle to anyone trying to exercise professionally will not be their registration with the relevant governing body, but limitations arising from travelling on the back of a holiday visa waiver.

View

CelticRambler wrote: »

Not so rubbishy as all that, and not a "stroke" either. I'm in a similar position, and have chosen to maintain my registration in the UK even though I haven't worked there for three years. Doing so gives me the freedom to move to the UK at very short notice (less than 24 hours if necessary) and be fully licensed to work from an existing physical establishment as soon as I arrive. It's not really any different to being required to tell the Irish, the Germans or the Romanians what address I'll be working from if I want to provide the same service there under Freedom of Movement rules.

Naturally, there's a cost-benefit assessment to be done, but the requirement to work from an office physically located in the EU is no big deal. For the sake of half a day's fees, maintaining a dual registration makes sense for any firm doing business regularly in the EU. I suspect the biggest obstacle to anyone trying to exercise professionally will not be their registration with the relevant governing body, but limitations arising from travelling on the back of a holiday visa waiver.

Holiday visa waivers are there for holidays, not for working. Anyone working on a holiday visa waiver would be in breach of immigration laws and liable for arrest and deportation. If the Law Society is assisting any non-EU citizens to breach immigration laws, the government should take immediate actions against them. The legal profession shouldn’t expect to get away with something that would land any other profession in hot water.

lemonTrees

Lumen wrote: »

I believe that most of the factors cited as causal of the Cummings early exit are merely symptoms of the crumbling of power/resolve in the face of the Brexit train coming down the tracks.

I know that some believe that no deal exit was always plan A, but I don't think so. I think that No 10. expected that the deal would be done by now (several important deadlines have now passed) and that December would see Dom joyfully skipping off stage as the bureacrats scrabbled to implement the deal.

As the pressure has ramped up in the last few weeks it has no longer been possible to hold the personalities together.

I've worked a little in No. 10 (not recently mind) and one of the things that struck me as an outsider was how few people are actually steering the ship and how averagely talented even the people near the top are. There are several hundred people working there but for the most part they're fairly junior support staff and researchers, and the vast ranks of civil servants spread around Whitehall are just following orders. The (fictional) West Wing it is not.

I'm half expecting/hoping that Frost quits in the next couple of weeks. Boris must be feeling quite isolated right now. If that happens I can see the UK asking for a fresh extension and it being granted on the basis that enough has changed in domestic politics to make the formerly impossible possible.

That would be political suicide for Boris and the Tories. The UK electorate have made it clear they want out. The time for extensions and last minute deals that go against the will of the people has long gone.

Leroy42

lemonTrees wrote: »

That would be political suicide for Boris and the Tories. The UK electorate have made it clear they want out. The time for extensions and last minute deals that go against the will of the people has long gone.

Sure, but the politicians know the chaos that is coming, and they know that regardless of how much people wanted Brexit, those same people will blame the politicians for any chaos.

So do you continue down the chaos track, which will be long lasting and impact negatively across many sectors of the economy and sections of society, or do you take the pragmatic approach and suffer short term displeasure?

That is the calculation to be made. They lose either way, its a case of which things they value more.

On Lumens point, I agree that No Deal was never the plan. It was a negotiation position, one they were sure the EU would crumble at.

But at it became clear it wasn't working it became the only way to save face. No Deal is sold as the UK walking away when in fact it is the clearest sign that all the Brexiteers claims of taking back control, holding the cards, sunny uplands etc were nonsense.

But it is all they have left.

CelticRambler

View wrote: »

Holiday visa waivers are there for holidays, not for working. Anyone working on a holiday visa waiver would be in breach of immigration laws and liable for arrest and deportation.

That was my point!

Right now, I can take myself off to England or any EU country and, in complete legality, provide a professional service locally starting tomorrow morning, and someone based in the UK can do likewise. It makes no difference whether my journey is for the purposes of business or leisure.

Come Jan 1st, though, the UK falls outside of that protocol: British travellers, even if legally present in the country, won't be allowed engage in any kind of work unless they've jumped through the extra hoops they've created by reclaiming their sovereignty.

It's not just a question of whether or not their qualifications are recognised, or whether they're registered with the local governing body, it's also a question of personal citizenship. I don't think the majority of working-age adults have really understood how the British are on the cusp of becoming second-class Europeans. Only my young British (mostly non-English) friends recognise the impact of this, because in many cases they're best mates with "real" Europeans who can flit all over the continent and take up any job that's offered.

tanko

lemonTrees wrote: »

That would be political suicide for Boris and the Tories. The UK electorate have made it clear they want out. The time for extensions and last minute deals that go against the will of the people has long gone.

If there was a BREXIT referendum today i wonder what the result would be.
The British electorate was lied to before the referendum about what the reality of a yes vote would result in as we are seeing now. 52-48 was hardly "making it clear they want out". What is the will of the people now i wonder.
I've no doubt the end result now will be BRINO. Boris is preparing the way for another U turn.
Brexit means Brexit, take back control, £350,000,000/week more for the NHS,
We're leaving the EU on the 31st December 2019, doing the quickest trade deals in history, no deal is better than a bad deal, lie lie lie blah blah blah.

Capt'n Midnight

lemonTrees wrote: »

That would be political suicide for Boris and the Tories. The UK electorate have made it clear they want out. The time for extensions and last minute deals that go against the will of the people has long gone.

the will of the people

4 years is a long time ago. They aren't the same people.

Even if no one changed their minds demographics meant that 19th January 2019 was Crossover Day, even taking into account that OAP's are more likely to vote than teenagers.

The nett change is 1,350 per day, just shy of half a million extra votes a year.


Of during the course of the last four years OAP's have been shielded by their triple lock pensions and teenagers have been exposed to the worst of Brexit.

Seth Brundle

tanko wrote: »

If there was a BREXIT referendum today i wonder what the result would be.
The British electorate was lied to before the referendum about what the reality of a yes vote would result in as we are seeing now. 52-48 was hardly "making it clear they want out". What is the will of the people now i wonder.

I don't think people have informed themselves that much in the last four years to the point that there would be a big difference. You still see the same nonsense being trotted out by Brexiteers. You currently aren't seeing the same faces but the rhetoric is still there in Westminster and in the media.
Given that the current government were elected on a mandate of getting Brexit done (and with a weakened Labour not providing much opposition) I see no reason why the electorate would go against Brexit now.
Now if you were to ask them in three or four months time...

Professor Moriarty

tanko wrote: »

If there was a BREXIT referendum today i wonder what the result would be.
The British electorate was lied to before the referendum about what the reality of a yes vote would result in as we are seeing now. 52-48 was hardly "making it clear they want out". What is the will of the people now i wonder.
I've no doubt the end result now will be BRINO. Boris is preparing the way for another U turn.
Brexit means Brexit, take back control, £350,000,000/week more for the NHS,
We're leaving the EU on the 31st December 2019, doing the quickest trade deals in history, no deal is better than a bad deal, lie lie lie blah blah blah.

Not much has changed. From late October, excluding Don't Knows:

Remain 52%
Leave 48%


On a different note, from early November, excluding Don't Knows:

Supportive of asking to rejoin the European Union: 33%
Supportive of a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned with the EU: 21%
Supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clear break from the EU: 27%
Supportive of ending the Brexit transition period without a trade deal: 20%


It really is mind-boggling to think that 1 in 5 people in the UK want to see their country crash out of the EU without a deal. I'll be kind and say that, rather than the UK population having a significant cretinous cohort, they are irreparably ignorant.

Rolo2010

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Not much has changed. From late October, excluding Don't Knows:

Remain 52%
Leave 48%


On a different note, from early November, excluding Don't Knows:

Supportive of asking to rejoin the European Union: 33%
Supportive of a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned with the EU: 21%
Supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clear break from the EU: 27%
Supportive of ending the Brexit transition period without a trade deal: 20%


It really is mind-boggling to think that 1 in 5 people in the UK want to see their country crash out of the EU without a deal. I'll be kind and say that, rather than the UK population having a significant cretinous cohort, they are irreparably ignorant.

The benefits of EU membership were never explained. You had politicians like Farage who spent 40 years blaming the UK's faults on the EU. That's not say that they can't be criticised but blaming the North's decline on immigration (a lot of it came from outside Europe) and EU red tape was ludicrous.

54and56

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Not much has changed. From late October, excluding Don't Knows:

Remain 52%
Leave 48%


On a different note, from early November, excluding Don't Knows:

Supportive of asking to rejoin the European Union: 33%
Supportive of a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned with the EU: 21%
Supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clear break from the EU: 27%
Supportive of ending the Brexit transition period without a trade deal: 20%


It really is mind-boggling to think that 1 in 5 people in the UK want to see their country crash out of the EU without a deal. I'll be kind and say that, rather than the UK population having a significant cretinous cohort, they are irreparably ignorant.

Likely a strong correlation with the percentage of the population who feel completely hopeless through the effects of austerity over the last 10-12 years, loss of benefits etc

If you haven't had much of an education, live hand to mouth in run down social housing, are unemployed or in a dead end job which pays barely enough to live and have been bombarded with red top / Express propaganda blaming all your woes on the EU/Immigration what downside is there for you if there's a no deal? You're already on the breadline and scraping by, how much worse will things really get for you? If you lose the crap job you have you'll end up on crap benefits but it'll feel more or less the same.

The people most at risk from a no deal are the middle classes and if you're one of the disaffected 20% a little taste of your life for the middle classes might be a positive side affect from a crash out Brexit.

Capt'n Midnight

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

It really is mind-boggling to think that 1 in 5 people in the UK want to see their country crash out of the EU without a deal. I'll be kind and say that, rather than the UK population having a significant cretinous cohort, they are irreparably ignorant.

It really is mind-boggling to think that 1 in 2 OAP's in the UK wanted to see Brexit even if it meant a family member would loose their job

Among those aged 65 and over, 71 per cent believed that “significant damage” to the UK was a price worth paying for Brexit, the study reveals.

Professor Moriarty

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It really is mind-boggling to think that 1 in 2 OAP's in the UK wanted to see Brexit even if it meant a family member would loose their job

When you boil it down and strain it off, it's all about Johnny Foreigner.

Joe_ Public

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

When you boil it down and strain it off, it's all about Johnny Foreigner.

Pretty much. Remember when gove was education secretary a few years back and tried to initiate a history curriculum that basically ignored anything other than the glories of empire. That's what all these hard brexit supporting generations grew up learning, i doubt they'll ever modify that view at this stage. Even the pushback at what will come to be written as the "statue wars" tells you how hard those attitudes will drop.

Strazdas

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

When you boil it down and strain it off, it's all about Johnny Foreigner.

Yes : the key single driver of Brexit was a dislike and distrust of "foreigners" (and a feeling that England was superior to all European countries). Every other argument was secondary.

Capt'n Midnight

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

When you boil it down and strain it off, it's all about Johnny Foreigner.

The irony of course is that a lot of Asians voted for Brexit because ending EU free movement would mean more of their friends and relations could come in.

It's too late to remind the xenophobes that in effect they voted to swap white Christian Polish plumbers for ones from Pakistan because the UK always had full control of non-EU immigration and doesn't limit it. Which is probably not what they thought they voted for.

Well actually what they voted for UK to leave the EU with no conditions attached and a Tory majority time after time. It's a blank cheque. Carte blanche.

Going Strong

Some more information on the power struggle between the "Deal" and "No Deal" factions.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1327970115586023424

In a related piece of gossip, apparently David Frost has been acting unilaterally and deciding by himself what ministers need to know or not know. Mostly, it's him telling ministers what they want to hear and suppressing any inconvenient facts. This comes from another site I'm on where a fellow poster used to work in the Department of Trade & Industry.

Roanmore

Going Strong wrote: »

Some more information on the power struggle between the "Deal" and "No Deal" factions.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1327970115586023424

In a related piece of gossip, apparently David Frost has been acting unilaterally and deciding by himself what ministers need to know or not know. Mostly, it's him telling ministers what they want to hear and suppressing any inconvenient facts. This comes from another site I'm on where a fellow poster used to work in the Department of Trade & Industry.

Judging by George Eustice's performance on Andrew Marr this morning I'm not surprised.

https://twitter.com/vosboks/status/1327916960231907329

rogue-entity

54and56 wrote: »

The people most at risk from a no deal are the middle classes and if you're one of the disaffected 20% a little taste of your life for the middle classes might be a positive side affect from a crash out Brexit.

Compared to those on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder, the middle classes can leave the country and potentially keep their jobs in the process.

I know there was an uptick in folks applying for Irish passports, and I had seen over the past four years some news articles on folks who upped sticks and moved over, I wonder if there will be a significant number of Brits relocating here once the reality sinks in?

It would be another rather poignant dose of Karma, if the folks who's jobs bring in the money that pays those pensions and benefits, left them to lie in the bed they made.

ExMachina1000

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

When you boil it down and strain it off, it's all about Johnny Foreigner.

People are entitled to have immigration related grievances.

Tropheus

ExMachina1000 wrote: »

People are entitled to have immigration related grievances.

They are but thrashing your economy shouldn't be seen a solution.

Nody

ExMachina1000 wrote: »

People are entitled to have immigration related grievances.

And they are allowed to believe they were kidnapped by Aliens who used anal probes on them as well; it still does not make it an actual truth or fix any problems by claiming that leaving EU the Aliens will not be allowed to use probes.