Brexit Thread V - The Final Countdown?!?

[Kyriakos]

Hm, if may didnt have to allow debate/voting on said amendment, why did she?
#bino

 

[Senethro]

lol at that guy thinking we have further dignity to lose

 

[Ironsided]

The drama-queen parade following the referendum has not been pretty but the UK has a lot of dignity intact. Look at the amount of abuse Corbyn has had to take recently and done so in a perfectly dignified manner.

 

[innonimatu]

And as i keep posting, it is very strange how you go on about ‘imperialism’ elsewhere and then here you post, without any caveats, that Northern Ireland is ‘sovereign British territory’ just like that.

It is, just as Palestine is israeli territory. Pretending that things are other that what they actually are is not a good way to solve any problem. Problems must be acknowledged in order to be solved.

You mean London City ?

Yes.

* during that 6 months everybody can prepare business, borders, etc....and negotiations can take place for bare bone WTO deals if so desired.

The thing is, nothing in Article 50 as it stands now prohibits carrying out negotiations. The idea that the UK could not negotiate new deals until it formally exited the EU was as interpretation of the current treaty, as in the UK was still a member therefore prohibited from doing so. A different interpretation could easily have been made: negotiating a deal is not the same as having a deal.

This was yet another way in which this process was badly carried out, and the blame for it is on the UK's government which should have stated that it would negotiate other deals immediately regardless of what the EC claimed. The EU bureaucracy would spit verbal fire it wasn't as if the EU could do anything to prevent it.

The negotiations were not negotiations at all because, as I pointed out months ago, neither side was negotiating in good faith. Both sides had set red lines that precluded any deal from being reached.

 

[Arakhor]

It is, just as Palestine is israeli territory. Pretending that things are other that what they actually are is not a good way to solve any problem. Problems must be acknowledged in order to be solved.

Northern Ireland remains British territory only as long as the majority of its people wish it to be so. The Government is required to legally poll the people if there is a good chance that that wish has switched towards unification. In that respect, Northern Ireland is actually sovereign (Northern) Irish territory and it remains in their grant to decide which Ireland to belong.

 

[innonimatu]

Yes I know that is part of the GFA, a key part indeed. And it is a very good principle. You do have a point that NI has that special status recognized within the UK. But until the day they choose to separate and join Ireland they are part of the UK.

 

[uppi]

The thing is, nothing in Article 50 as it stands now prohibits carrying out negotiations. The idea that the UK could not negotiate new deals until it formally exited the EU was as interpretation of the current treaty, as in the UK was still a member therefore prohibited from doing so. A different interpretation could easily have been made: negotiating a deal is not the same as having a deal.

This was yet another way in which this process was badly carried out, and the blame for it is on the UK's government which should have stated that it would negotiate other deals immediately regardless of what the EC claimed. The EU bureaucracy would spit verbal fire it wasn't as if the EU could do anything to prevent it.

In practice, the ban on trade deal negotiations means that the UK hasn't been able to sign any trade deals. They could and did conduct negotiations, for example with Switzerland. After all, the EU is not in a position to prevent "informal" talks between the UK and any other government.

The trade negotiations have been hindered much more by the indecisiveness of the UK regarding its future relationship with the EU. Most government would be very hesitant to negotiate a trade deal when major portions of it could be invalidated by a potential deal with the EU.

 

[really]

Yes I know that is part of the GFA, a key part indeed. And it is a very good principle. You do have a point that NI has that special status recognized within the UK. But until the day they choose to separate and join Ireland they are part of the UK.

The legal status of Northern Ireland is not in question. It is all the other paraphernalia of a border that is the problem.

 

[Hrothbern]

The thing is, nothing in Article 50 as it stands now prohibits carrying out negotiations. The idea that the UK could not negotiate new deals until it formally exited the EU was as interpretation of the current treaty, as in the UK was still a member therefore prohibited from doing so. A different interpretation could easily have been made: negotiating a deal is not the same as having a deal.

This was yet another way in which this process was badly carried out, and the blame for it is on the UK's government which should have stated that it would negotiate other deals immediately regardless of what the EC claimed. The EU bureaucracy would spit verbal fire it wasn't as if the EU could do anything to prevent it.

AFAIK Liam Fox did start WTO and FTA negotiations long time ago, and Theresa May did for example visit Japan in September 2017.
I cannot remember the EU protesting against that.

Ofc you (the UK) start negotiations immediately with everybody on WTO and FTA.
The only restriction the EU had on negotiating with the UK was that the divorce had to be settled first and if not there would be no further talking except bare bone deals on for example airplane routes etc, that London City Financial Services deal, etc and the bare bone necessity (from other WTO members) of divorcing, splitting the WTO quotas of the EU.
Call it a red line: but the only thing the EU wanted was to settle first the properties/liabilities and the arrangements for the kids not getting the victim of the quarrel of the parents. (the kids: the UK citizens in the EU, the EU citizens in the UK and the EU-UK citizens living around the Irish border).

And if the UK would not agree, and only the airplane routes and WTO quotas, etc would be agreed.... shrug shoulders... move on.

The negotiations were not negotiations at all because, as I pointed out months ago, neither side was negotiating in good faith. Both sides had set red lines that precluded any deal from being reached.

You do not seem to understand the numbers at all Inno.
If you know and accept them them you can understand how desperate Westminster is to get a deal and how expensive the red lines of the UK are.

The EU has one red line to get a proper divorece and one red line to keep the integrity of the Four Freedoms. Both were made crystal clear from the start. Both are supported by all EU-27 members.
The UK could choose from the off the shelve possibilities, WTO, FTA, Single Market (with standard EU rules), Customs Union (with standard EU rules), Remain, join Eurozone. The exact same package as every other country in the world gets except countries not in Europe who only get the choice between the first two, although in theory the first three would be possible.
Standard EU rules are red lines in good faith for everybody the same.
Just like the WTO red lines.



The shrug shoulders of the EU:

The EU-27 is currently 5.5 times as big as the UK.
If for example it ends up in a WTO relation: and if for example that would mean that in 2030 the EU suffers a damage of 1.0% of GDP, at first order proxy... the UK will suffer a damage of 5.5% of GDP (5.5 times as big).
If a FTA reduces that damage relatively with 25%, the EU suffers a damage of 0.75% of GDP and the UK suffers a damage of 4.12%.
(that 25% difference is what many models roughly conclude).

Do you really think that the EU would give up its integrity of the Four Freedoms for that 0.25% GDP difference ?

Giving up that integrity for that 0.25% means troubles with:
* Members encouraged to copy the Cameron approach with threatening to Leave and then start renegotiating all kinds of everything to get a better "deal"
* Canada, Japan, and 56 other countries knocking on the door of the EU asking for the same privileges (and worst case they make a formal dispute out of it for the WTO panels as unfair competition discrimination).
* Big companies, of which some will more than average suffer from unfair competition starting with a lot of pressure on their home government "to do something about it" supported by unions and local entities.

For that example the total benefit of a FTA compared to WTO for the UK is "only" 1.38% more GDP in 2030 (5.5%-4.12% = 1.38%).

So why for a 1.38% less GDP level in 2030 all the drama in the UK ?

The answer is simple:
The damage is substantially higher.
* The first order damage of a WTO relation is likely to be higher at 1%-2% for the EU and 5.5%-11% for the UK in 2030 from missed growth.
* There is a second order damage (difficult to quantify reliable) that is related to scale size which is much bigger for the UK than the EU (the disconnect/isolation leading to a lagging behind from industrialising synergies from innovations, leading to slower growth of labor productivity). This second order damage becomes smaller the closer the UK stays: max at WTO, a bit smaller at FTA, two bits smaller with access to the Single Market.
* Access to the Single Market would reduce the first order damage to around 50%. For the EU that is 0.5%-1.0% less damage, for the UK that is a lot bigger: 2.75%-5.5% less first order damage.
And yes.... Corbyn tries all the time that Customs Union with many ++++++, but those +++++ are in fact accesses to the Single Market.

But access to that Single market means compliance to the standard EU rules and the standard EU court.
The more accesses to the Single Market in a deal, the more protectioning rules of the EU are made active, the more compliances for the UK. The more newsmedia talk on more red lines.

When the UK does not want to comply with that because of self-determination.... that is a fair choice I can respect... but in that case stop wanting all the benefits as well.
Canada took its time for that minimal benefit of a FTA and never demanded access to the EU Single Market without complying. Japan the same. Those other 56 countries the same.
They did not complain and whine on red lines.

This whole Art 50 period is a surreal period.
Almost nothing has been achieved so far... tick... tick... and the reality that a FTA is hardly better than a WTO and both are truly damaging has not been made public.
Instead of that, people like you Inno, are only talking politics with words like bad technocrats, no democracy in the EU and unreasonable red lines., distracting the discourse from what is at stake.

That's why I made thart post to shorten the Art 50 period to 6 months securing there is only time for bare bone deals and everybody knows you start thereafter at a WTO relation.
Transparent.
No confusions possible for the public.

 

[Silurian]

From BBC

The government will pay £33m to Eurotunnel in an agreement to settle a lawsuit over extra ferry services in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47414699

Chris Grayling does seem to be very good at distributing money. When he was justice secretary he distributed nearly £500m.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/01/watchdog-slams-extremely-costly-probation-changes

 

[Hrothbern]

From BBC



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47414699

Chris Grayling does seem to be very good at distributing money. When he was justice secretary he distributed nearly £500m.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/01/watchdog-slams-extremely-costly-probation-changes

"The Prime Minister's spokesman said Theresa May had full confidence in Mr Grayling.
The BBC's politcal correspondent, Alex Forsyth, says the prime minister can "ill afford further disruption in government, or to lose a loyal minister".

Being incompetent is not that much of an issue when you are loyal

 

[AmazonQueen]

"The Prime Minister's spokesman said Theresa May had full confidence in Mr Grayling.
The BBC's politcal correspondent, Alex Forsyth, says the prime minister can "ill afford further disruption in government, or to lose a loyal minister".

Being incompetent is not that much of an issue when you are loyal

The rate shes been going through ministers it isn't like she has a lot of choice anyway. When Stephen Barclay was appointed Brexit Secretary the only thing anybody could find to say about him was he was ultra-loyal.

 

[Cheetah]

Just four more weeks to go.

 

[Arakhor]

Also today, the news broke of the High Court judgement condemning the "Right to Rent" decision as being incompatible with human rights law (take a guess whose idea you think it was), as well as details of the US' demands for a future trade deal (and they're as one-sided and destructive as you might expect). Dominic Raab, never one to pass up looking stupid, decided to spend his time instead accusing the EU of being unfair and bullying the UK.

 

[Cheetah]

details of the US' demands for a future trade deal (and they're as one-sided and destructive as you might expect).

https://www.ft.com/content/09bfe7ca-3bae-11e9-b72b-2c7f526ca5d0

US demands:

• “comprehensive market access for US agricultural goods in the UK” through the reduction or elimination of tariffs
• remove “unwarranted barriers” related to “sanitary and physiosanitary” standards in the farm industry
• “ensure that the UK avoids manipulating exchange rates in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair competitive advantage”
• constrain the UK’s ability to secure a trade deal with a “non-market economy” — such as China — by creating a “mechanism to ensure transparency and take appropriate action” (this could allow the US to ditch its trade deal with the UK if it does not like the terms of any agreement London strikes with Beijing)

Nice.

 

[Hrothbern]

https://www.ft.com/content/09bfe7ca-3bae-11e9-b72b-2c7f526ca5d0

US demands

• constrain the UK’s ability to secure a trade deal with a “non-market economy” — such as China — by creating a “mechanism to ensure transparency and take appropriate action” (this could allow the US to ditch its trade deal with the UK if it does not like the t

=> No freedom to strike its own Global Britain FTA's unless approved by the US.... is that not vassalage for the US geopolitical important stuff and freedom for the nitty gritty ?
And after Iran, Russia, etc.....when is the EU on that US black list ?

US demands:

• “ensure that the UK avoids manipulating exchange rates in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair competitive advantage”

=> A Strong and Stable access for US goods at the expense of the UK domestic economy. Currency devaluations are far more effective than most tariffs to protect domestic economy (only the usual high WTO tariffs on food are mostly high enough to have protective effect)
And as side note: this underpins how difficult it is for foreign countries to agree to a FTA before the Pound has found a new balance on the world market. If the Pound goes down 10% more than anticipated all goods get in effect a 10% higher tariff.
This clause basically demands the UK to peg the British Pound to the US Dollar.
Another example of the taking back control hypocricy.
The UK has now its own free currency in the EU and joining the Eurozone would be the stupid thing to do.... and with agreeing to this US demand the UK effectively joins the US Dollar zone. (but can formally deny it).



I saw as well remarks on US Big Pharma and the NHS.
For sure there will come a nice article describing how the NHS is going to prescribe the same amount of opiates as in the US (and ofc at nice prices).

 

[innonimatu]

In practice, the ban on trade deal negotiations means that the UK hasn't been able to sign any trade deals. They could and did conduct negotiations, for example with Switzerland. After all, the EU is not in a position to prevent "informal" talks between the UK and any other government.

The trade negotiations have been hindered much more by the indecisiveness of the UK regarding its future relationship with the EU. Most government would be very hesitant to negotiate a trade deal when major portions of it could be invalidated by a potential deal with the EU.

Agreed. The problem is that the formalities have provided good excuses for the forces within the UK who opposed brexit altogether to continue to slow things down, homing that an exit would become eventually so scary (we're unprepared!) that it wouldn't happen. That is, of course, the UK's internal problem and the blame is first and foremost their own.

 

[innonimatu]

You do not seem to understand the numbers at all Inno.
If you know and accept them them you can understand how desperate Westminster is to get a deal and how expensive the red lines of the UK are.
...

The EU-27 is currently 5.5 times as big as the UK.
If for example it ends up in a WTO relation: and if for example that would mean that in 2030 the EU suffers a damage of 1.0% of GDP, at first order proxy... the UK will suffer a damage of 5.5% of GDP (5.5 times as big).
If a FTA reduces that damage relatively with 25%, the EU suffers a damage of 0.75% of GDP and the UK suffers a damage of 4.12%.
(that 25% difference is what many models roughly conclude).

Do you really think that the EU would give up its integrity of the Four Freedoms for that 0.25% GDP difference ?

I do understand the numbers, though I disagree in that the difference is not so big that the UK becomes automatically the weaker part. The potential for critical damage, as in the political and economic institutions of the other side won't survive an open, hostile conflict, exists for both dies. That should have been a sobering thought during negotiations. It hasn't, and the EU negotiators with their "we're big" idea are probably still unaware of the hole they dug themselves into.

Coincidence had it that brexit will happen as a lengthy economic cycle turns from boom to bust. This changes everything about those numbers, and their importance.

 

[Arakhor]

How could you possibly know who thought what, during negotiations or at any time?

 

[Takhisis]

The legal status of Northern Ireland is not in question. It is all the other paraphernalia of a border that is the problem.

On this:

Spoiler :

I was sitting in a cafe on the Falls Road in heavily nationalist West Belfast when a local radio reporter came in looking for residents to interview about the effect of Brexit on Northern Ireland. She said that the impact was already massive, adding: “Stupid, stupid English for getting us into this pickle. We were doing nicely and then they surpassed themselves [in stupidity].”

It does not take long talking to people in Northern Ireland to understand that almost everything said by politicians and commentators in London about the “backstop” is based on a dangerous degree of ignorance and wishful thinking about the real political situation on the ground here. Given how central this issue is to the future of the UK, it is extraordinary how it is debated with only minimal knowledge of the real forces involved.

The most important of these risks can be swiftly spelled out. Focus is often placed on the sheer difficulty of policing the 310-mile border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because there are at least 300 major and minor crossing points. But the real problem is not geographic or military but political and demographic because almost all the border runs through country where Catholics greatly outnumber Protestants. The Catholics will not accept, and are in a position to prevent, a hard border unless it is defended permanently by several thousand British troops in fortified positions.

The threat to peace is often seen as coming from dissident Republicans, a small and fragmented band with little support, who might shoot a policeman or a customs’ official. But this is not the greatest danger, or at least not yet, because it is much more likely that spontaneous but sustained protests would prevent any attempt to recreate an international frontier between Northern Ireland and the Republic that wasn’t backed by overwhelming armed force.

It is unrealistic to the point of absurdity to imagine that technical means on the border could substitute for customs personnel because cameras and other devices would be immediately destroyed by local people. A new border would have to be manned by customs officials, but these would not go there unless they were protected by police and the police could not operate without British Army protection. Protesters would be killed or injured and we would spiral back into violence.

We are not looking at a worst-case scenario but an inevitability if a hard border returns as it will, if there is a full Brexit. The EU could never agree to a deal – and would be signing its own death warrant if it did – in which the customs union and the single market have a large unguarded hole in their tariff and regulatory walls.

An essential point to grasp is that the British government does not physically control the territory, mostly populated by nationalists, through which the border runs. It could only reassert that control by force which would mean a return to the situation during the Troubles, between 1968 and 1998, when many of the 270 public roads crossing the border were blocked by obstacles or cratered with explosives by the British Army. Even then British soldiers could only move through places like South Armagh using helicopters.

The focus for the security forces in Northern Ireland is on dissident Republican groups that never accepted the Good Friday Agreement. These have failed to gain traction inside the Roman Catholic/nationalist community which has no desire to go back to war and give up the very real advantages that it has drawn from the long peace.

But that peace could slip away without anybody wanting it to go because Brexit, as conceived by the European Research Group and as delineated by Theresa May’s red lines, is a torpedo aimed directly at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement. This meant that those who saw themselves as Irish (essentially the Catholics) and those who saw themselves as British (the Protestants) could live peacefully in the same place. Moreover, the agreement established and institutionalised a complicated balance of power between the two communities in which the Irish government and the EU played a central role.

Yet ever since the general election of 2017, when May became dependent on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), it is the DUP – the party of Ian Paisley – that has been treated by politicians and media in Britain as if they were the sole representatives of the 1.9 million people living in Northern Ireland. Its MPs are seldom asked by interviewers to justify their support for the UK leaving the EU when Northern Ireland voted for Remain in the referendum by 56 per cent to 44 per cent.

In ignoring the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the British government is committing the same costly mistake it committed in the 50 years before 1968 which led to the fiercest guerrilla conflict in western Europe since the Second World War. The nationalist community today has a lot more to lose than it did half a century ago. It is no longer subject to sectarian discrimination in the way it used to be, as well as being highly educated and economically dynamic, but this does not mean that it can be taken for granted.

It may also be that the majority of the Northern Ireland population in two years’ time, when the Brexit transition period might be coming to an end, will no longer be Protestant and unionist but Catholic and nationalist. In the last census in 2011 Protestants were 48 per cent of the population and Catholics 45 per cent. The Protestants are not only a declining proportion of the population, but an increasingly ageing one, figures from 2016 showing that Catholics are 44 per cent of the working population and Protestants 44 per cent. Significantly, Catholics make up 51 per cent of school children in Northern Ireland and Protestants only 37 per cent.

The Protestants are a community on the retreat, but many have argued that this does not make much political difference because it is a mistake to imagine that all Catholics wanted a united Ireland. Many felt that they were better off where they were with a free NHS and an annual UK subsidy of £11bn.

But Brexit has changed this calculation. With Ireland and the UK members of the EU, religious and national loyalties were blurred. Many Protestants, particularly middle class ones, voted Remain in the referendum, but the vote was still essentially along sectarian lines. “You would not find many nationalists post-Brexit who would not vote for a united Ireland in a new border poll whatever they thought before,” said one commentator, though the likelihood is that if there were to be such a poll there would still be a slim majority favouring the union with Great Britain.

If May’s deal with the EU is finally agreed by the House of Commons then the issue of a hard border will be postponed. Any return to it would put Northern Ireland back on the road to crisis and violence. Stupid, stupid, stupid English.

(source: The English are driving Northern Ireland into conflict - the fear is that they are too stupid to care by Patrick Cockburn for the Independent)

That's an interesting point. The border is not enforceable without active repression, and how long until the Protestant/Unionist voting bloc is aged out of society?

How could you possibly know who thought what, during negotiations or at any time?

Projection.