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May's Brexit Plan


PaulAA

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8 hours ago, Chris W said:

You may be surprised to find that I agree with you but that then takes us into a whole new discussion on the price of Democracy.

The price of democracy and the quality of democracy maybe.

Myself, I think that such an unprecedented act of national self-harm should have come from a better understanding of what the EU is and does and our actual place in it.

Not from a simplistic yes/no from an "unbinding" referendum cooked up by an idiot politician trying to consolidate his own power base in the arrogant, over-confident assumption it would go his way.  Who then cravenly dived into the bushes when he lost the gamble he didn't even realise he was taking until too late........ 

Not from the ignorance (often wilful), propaganda, spin, fear tactics and outright, barefaced lies that actually surrounded the pathetically inadequate "debate" prior to the vote. Both sides guilty, though the real whoppers came from the Brexit side.  That's without the question of outside interference........

I also think that such a radical step ought really to have needed a bigger majority, especially when you look at the old/young divide.  I saw an article recently suggesting that in the 2 years since the vote, enough of the older voters, with their Brexit leanings, have died and enough young adults, with their remain leanings, reaching voting age, to tip the balance the other way.  I think it is absolutely outrageous that our young people will have to take the consequences of the often historically formed biases of a relatively few older voters who are, or will be, dead before the "deal" is even done.

BTW, the problem with the "deal" is it isn't actually a deal, just a promise to do more dealing for years to come, from a very weak negotiating position.

Truly, at present my advice to my kids is "get off the island" claim asylum somewhere........

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I absolutely disagree Dave.

 

Dominic Rabb has been going on about leaving without paying the "divorce settlement".

To me this is, at best, lunacy.
If someone went back back on a deal/their word with me I would never ever go back.

 

Russia has sanctions in place against us right now, sure, 
but the EU could really hurt us.............

 

 

Ian.

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May's deal means UK will be prevented , possibly indefinitely, from making trade deals elswhere by the veto of any one fo the 27 at any time. May puts UK in a situation of damned if we do or dont. But No Deal has the best defined outcome, the most certainty. By comparison trying to steer a route through the ambitions of 27 states is frought with extreme uncertainty fro many years to come. No Deal has its attractions politically.

Peter

 

 

 

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On 12/1/2018 at 5:30 PM, Chris W said:

Paul, you may think so but GDP is calculated:

Consumer Spending + Business Investment + Government Spending +/- Net Exports/Imports

It is a measure of the size of an economy as defined by the spending side. I agree that Exports are at Sales value but that's all.

Cheers

Chris

 

Chris

Dang... I missed out the word 'solely' from my earlier polemic ("GDP is not solely a measure of spending") and you are of course right: GDP is spending + investment.

 

Paul

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Never quite looked at it that way, what your suggesting is that the Governments message to Business and the Country should be along the lines of "Imagine your an in heat She Cat, we are going to drop you in a room full of Tom Cats, were not sure by whom, how many or in what order, but with certainty you are going to be Fucked"

Like it! sod all the waste of time and money  trying to plan for the un-forecastable  events of a hard exit.

Alan

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To continue the cat analogy, UK would be neutered if May's political plan were to be implemented. We have no idea waht scatter gum impacts the 27  can come up with, and it only takes one of them to veto any trade agreement with EU. May's would be delivering unanticipated kittens for years to coem

Peter

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16 hours ago, Chris W said:

Hi Nick,

You may be surprised to find that I agree with you but that then takes us into a whole new discussion on the price of Democracy.

However, this thread was started by Paul, to get people's views on the May deal.  Broadly speaking, it seems that everyone thinks it is rubbish but as a pragmatist, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if Mrs May hasn't 'played a blinder'. I haven't read the WA but as I understand it...................

We will be leaving the EU on the 29th of March 2019. Democracy satisfied.

However, we will still be in (or have access, as if we were in) the Single Market and a Customs Union but not subject to Freedom of Movement.  We regain control of our waters and are out of the CAP.  We have to pay the Divorce settlement but no longer pay for Membership.  The price is that the ECJ will have some authority (but more limited than currently) we won't have 'a seat at the table' (but UKIP spent years telling us we had no influence anyway) and we won't be able to do Third Party trade deals.

Now here's the thing.  The above is for an implementation period of two years while we negotiate a Free Trade Deal, but if we can't negotiate a deal, it cannot be ended unless both sides agree. This gives us a veto on ending the arrangement, if doing so is not in our interest.

So if Spain says we want Gibraltar in return for an FTA, or France says we want your fish, we just say no, that's alright, we'll carry on as we are thanks.

What am I missing?

Hi Chris

I think that's an extremely charitable review, but the basic premise would be that May set out with this blinder in mind, with little or no support from key figures in her cabinet, including two successive Brexit Ministers.  I'm afraid that this beggars belief.

Ostensibly, the one 'win' is the ending of Freedom of Movement (but who will clean your toilets, pick your sprouts, nurse your sick and fix your plumbing?).  My reading is that everything else is a fudge wrapped up in a muddle.  The absence of a unilateral exit fro this deal surely means that the UK's Purgatory can therefore last indefinitely.  There does not yet appear to be a workable solution to the Irish Border, fishing rights or international trade.  If none that is acceptable appears in the next two years, what will the electorate do?  Trump's remark on it being a good deal for the EU looks, sadly, to be correct.

I believe that what you are missing is (to use a dreadful business euphemism) the upside.  What has been achieved?  I'm just a casual bystander, so I'm keen to learn.

Cheers

Paul

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1 hour ago, PeterC said:

To continue the cat analogy, UK would be neutered if May's political plan were to be implemented.

To yet further the feline slant, instead of dropping the poor cat in a situation where it gets fucked, or neutering it, why not just put the poor thing on the ground and let it continue on its way unmolested?

Alan

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5 hours ago, PaulAA said:

Ostensibly, the one 'win' is the ending of Freedom of Movement (but who will clean your toilets, pick your sprouts, nurse your sick and fix your plumbing?). 

Correct and it is a big win, in terms of the Leaver's objectives.  Ironically, I suspect that if The EU had given Cameron some slack on this from Freedom of Movement to Freedom of Movement for Workers, we may not be having this discussion now.

By the way, the people you mentioned can still come, they just have to apply. Whether they would want to is of course, another matter.

Cheers

Chris

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So it would seem from the responses that the main problem with the TM deal is that there is a risk we would be prevented from doing our own trade deals because we would be locked into a Customs Union with no means of pulling out unilaterally.  This is undoubtedly true but the flip side for the EU is that we continue to have access to the Single Market without paying the Membership fee.  I suspect that if this were to run on for some time, it would be destabilising for the EU so the would have a strong incentive to move things on.

The next question though, is what is so great about being able to negotiate our own FTAs. A trade deal with the USA is often cited as a top priority but we already have a massive trade surplus with the USA under WTO.  It seems to me that a trade deal with the USA could be counter productive as it would give them access to areas of our market that they currently can't access. I think the phrase 'careful what you wish for' might apply here.

Finally, playing the role of Devil's Advocate................

During the Referendum campaign, a lot of people on the leave side said something along the lines of 'we voted to be in the Common Market, not all the political union stuff'.  Well, I suggest that what Mrs May has negotiated (either by accident or design) is Common Market 2.0  I wonder if she had spun it that way, it might be more popular.

Of course all this is academic as her deal doesn't stand any chance of getting through!!!

Cheers

Chris

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, Chris W said:

... if The EU had given Cameron some slack on this from Freedom of Movement to Freedom of Movement for Workers, we may not be having this discussion now.

 

You may be correct, but the negotiations in early 2016 were just that, negotiations.  There was no reason for the EU to roll over and waggle it's legs just because the UK pitched up and threatened "if you don't give us what we want..."

Maybe if the UK had fielded a competent negotiator instead of the weak and compromised Cameron, we would indeed be talking about cars instead of b----y Brexit.

Cheers

Paul

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As I may have said before, it was Cameron's enormous privileged arrogance in assuming that the EU would give him and the UK special advantage, and promising a referendum when he came back with his new deal, that precipitated all this.    Why should they?    You join a Club and stick to the Club's rules.    If you don't like them stay and work to change them.

Oh, yes, where have I heard that recently?  Unluckily for the UK, there's no Sideways to retreat to.

JOhn

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I think there was arrogance on display from many - yes from Cameron in expecting the remain vote to win, but also from the EU in not giving Cameron anything to come back to the UK with in order to better argue his case for remain. It left him with project fear as his main argument - using a negative to achieve a positive result never works well in my opinion.

I agree that to affect change it is best to be within the organisation in question - but when that organisation displays absolutely no sign of understanding or desire to make change as situations evolve, then the choice is stark - stay and put up with it, or move on.

The TRR, hopefully, is showing signs of wanting to change - the Forum working party for example. Clearly, if the outcome of that is not satisfactory as far as many of us that are enjoying our time here is concerned, then I guess we are then able to 'trade' with alternative clubs, hopefully without having to pay a divorce bill to the TRR! :biggrin:

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The arrogance thing is interesting.

In some ways giving the public a referendum is the opposite. Refusing is arrogant.

It seems the political class is rather used to deciding what is best for the country, despite the majority being against. And that is exactly why UKIP et al managed to get such a foothold. The politicians were so up their own backside, looking after themselves/each other they forgot who they should be working for. makes my blood boil. 

Nearly every politician seems to have done PPE and never had a proper job. They have little idea about the people they are supposed to serve. 

Yes, if the EU politicians had bothered to look at what was happening when Cameron paid his visit (and it wasn't/isn't just us) they would have seen that immigration was becoming a hot potato and something better that sending him away would have been a wise move. Maybe setting up a EU wide discussion on immigration that took into consideration the people. Maybe being more transparent about decisions rather than what was/is happening. Many people think we are almost an experiment with rules handed down from on high. (I have had heated debates that banning certain chemicals etc is not whimsical, but because the cause real harm. But seen by other as just telling us what we can/can't do)

In reality, the EU has become fat and engorged. The public (not just here) see fat cats doing nicely and deciding everything for us. Maybe even the (sort of unconnected) ECJ should have judges, but also a jury (I know, cases are very complex in detail, but that detail often overrides what is right and wrong. But that is often the case with laws...) A rebellion was inevitable, but the EU seems to be a bit blind and never saw it coming. If reform had been on the table, I suspect the UK vote would have had a different outcome, and the EU may eventually have become a bit more sensible.....

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8 hours ago, Chris W said:

This is undoubtedly true but the flip side for the EU is that we continue to have access to the Single Market without paying the Membership fee.  I suspect that if this were to run on for some time, it would be destabilising for the EU so the would have a strong incentive to move things on.

Uh where did you get the mistaken idea that there is no continuing membership fee?   If May's plan goes through not only do we pay £39B (nb this is equivalent to 5 years net contributions) but as full members of the Customs Union and Single Market for two transition years we also continue to pay for this access. At the end of the two years what are the options, we have either negotiated something similar to the Norway option, for which Norway pays a huge amount but has no control, or we have negotiated no deal and we go to the back stop option and remain in the  Customs Union (but I believe not Single Market) for which there is also a fee. Also remember that in negotiating a new deal the current rebate we have £4B for full membership disappears so we could end up paying just as much for way less. 

There is no Free Option, other than a hard exit, where the term Free actually means significant huge cost to the economy, followed by a lengthy negotiation with the EU as we try and re-establish some  sort of sensible trading relationship, during which someone(s) on the other side of the Channel is likely to point out that we just ran away from an obligation of £39B and its highly unlikely than any new deal would be concluded without us honouring that debt. 

No such thing as a free lunch.

Alan

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13 hours ago, oldtuckunder said:

Uh where did you get the mistaken idea that there is no continuing membership fee?   If May's plan goes through not only do we pay £39B (nb this is equivalent to 5 years net contributions) but as full members of the Customs Union and Single Market for two transition years we also continue to pay for this access.

My understanding is that the Divorce Bill covers all payments required by the EU until the end of the Transition Period.  Where I was incorrect is that I 'bought' the Government line that if the transition were to be extended, there would be no more payments.  It turns out that there would be some payment but it would have to be negotiated at some time in the future.

On that basis, the premise of my earlier argument is undermined, T May isn't brilliant  and we are indeed headed for a no deal exit...............unless the EU final position isn't their final position really.

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This provided me with some wry amusement.....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/07/brexit-soap-opera-jacob-rees-mogg-nigel-farage

On 12/5/2018 at 6:14 PM, Janner said:

that the Eu can have its wicked way with us

We don't need the EU to screw us over..... our own governments (both colours) have been doing an outstanding job of it for years - and blaming it on the EU where ever possible.

It irritates me intensely that even now, many in politics still seem to think that their own skins/pockets and the party are more important than the country.  This whole crisis is an artificial construct born of Tory infighting and the more of them get roasted by it the better.  Shame about the country though......

So many crap and delusional "solutions" being bandied around.  Surely it becomes ever more clear that actually, what we have/had, however imperfect, remains superior to any of the alternatives.

Plus, in these troubled times, not only does Britain need the EU (even if some can't bear to admit it), but the EU needs Britain.

Back to filling and sanding :pinch:

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