In or out?

[Alan H]

Latest post of the previous page:

Discussing Home Secretary Amber Rudd's push to make firms list foreign workers, James O'Brien's startling point will stop you in your tracks.

https://www.facebook.com/LBC/videos/101 ... f=NEWSFEED

[Alan H]

WATCH: TORY LEAVE EU MPS ARE ASKED TO SIGN £350M CHEQUE TO NHS, BUT THEY RUN AWAY INSTEAD

[Alan H]

Angela Merkel takes significantly tougher Brexit stance

Angela Merkel has significantly stiffened her stance on Brexit, telling an audience of German business leaders that any exception to the EU’s single market rules would represent “a systemic challenge for the entire European Union”.

The German chancellor’s remarks reflect an apparent toughening of positions in European capitals after Theresa May announced on Sunday that the UK would begin formal divorce talks by the end of March and indicated it was heading for a “hard Brexit”.

Merkel appealed to German firms to show a united front with EU governments in negotiations over Britain’s departure from the bloc, urging them to support the principle of “full access to the single market only in exchange for signing up to the four freedoms”.

If any one country was allowed an exception, she said, “you can imagine how all countries will put put conditions on free movement with other countries. And that would create an extremely difficult situation.”

[Nick]

In other words, the EU would rather deliberately penalise its citizens (and those of any other country) who have the affrontery not to subscribe to their grand (and failing) European project.

It's like someone grabbing your hair and saying "if you do as you are told, it won't hurt" Of course, there is an alternative. Stop grabbing other people's hair.

[Alan H]

Theresa May criticized the term ‘citizen of the world.’ But half the world identifies that way.

In defense of the Brexit decision she now must implement, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Sunday that no "divisive nationalists" would hold up the process of exiting the European Union, and she firmly asserted that all four of Britain's constituent "nations" — England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — would Brexit together.

But the Brexit decision was fueled in many ways by nationalist sentiments, centering on perceived threats to Britain's sovereignty and many of its citizens' desires to prevent the supposed dilution of their national identity by immigrants crossing the European Union's open borders.

Just three days after her comment about "divisive nationalists," at her Conservative Party's annual conference, May espoused her own brand of nationalism — one that seems to encompass all of Britain, but excludes those who may feel as though they have multiple nationalities, or identities.

"Today, too many people in positions of power behave as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass on the street," she said. "But if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what citizenship means."

As it turns out, about half of the people "down the road" or whom one might "pass on the street" identify with the very phrase May disparaged — being a "citizen of the world" or global citizen.

In an 18-nation survey conducted by GlobeScan in conjunction with the BBC World Service that was released just over a month ago, 47 percent of Britons said they somewhat or strongly agreed that they considered themselves more as global citizens than citizens of the United Kingdom.

[Alan H]

Cross-party statement on resisting the Tories' toxic politics

Below is a joint statement signed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the Leader of Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood, and Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley, the co-leaders of the Green Party calling for progressive parties to work together to resist the ‘Tories' toxic politics’.


The countries of the United Kingdom face a spiralling political and economic crisis. At the top of the Conservative Party, the narrow vote in favour of leaving the EU has now been interpreted as the pretext for a drastic cutting of ties with Europe, which would have dire economic results - and as an excuse for the most toxic rhetoric on immigration we have seen from any government in living memory.

This is a profoundly moral question which gets to the heart of what sort of country we think we live in. We will not tolerate the contribution of people from overseas to our NHS being called into question, or a new version of the divisive rhetoric of 'British jobs for British workers'. Neither will we allow the people of these islands, no matter how they voted on June 23rd, to be presented as a reactionary, xenophobic mass whose only concern is somehow taking the UK back to a lost imperial age. At a time of increasing violence and tension, we will call out the actions of politicians who threaten to enflame those same things.

This is not a time for parties to play games, or meekly respect the tired convention whereby they do not break cover during each other's conferences. It is an occasion for us to restate the importance of working together to resist the Tories' toxic politics, and make the case for a better future for our people and communities. We will do this by continuing to work and campaign with the fierce sense of urgency this political moment demands.


Signed by:

Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland
Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales
Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales
Leanne Wood, Leader of Plaid Cymru
Steven Agnew, Leader of the Green Party of Northern Ireland
Patrick Harvie, Co-convener of the Scottish Green Party
Alice Hooker-Stroud, Leader of the Wales Green Party

[Alan H]

While Jeremy Hunt threatens UK doctors to keep them in the country, Theresa May pushes the foreign ones out the door

If keeping foreigners out was the limit of their fantasy, Jeremy Hunt’s plan to keep Brits in must be quite a bonus. But a quarter of the NHS is made up of foreign workers – and if we lose them, we lose our national health system

[Nick]

And your point is......?

[Nick]

Cross-party statement on resisting the Tories' toxic politics

Below is a joint statement signed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the Leader of Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood, and Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley, the co-leaders of the Green Party calling for progressive parties to work together to resist the ‘Tories' toxic politics’.

.... who, between them, at the last general election, gained fewer votes than UKIP.

Progressive? Hardly.

[Alan H]

And your point is......?

Quotes would be helpful.

[Alan H]

Cross-party statement on resisting the Tories' toxic politics

Below is a joint statement signed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the Leader of Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood, and Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley, the co-leaders of the Green Party calling for progressive parties to work together to resist the ‘Tories' toxic politics’.

.... who, between them, at the last general election, gained fewer votes than UKIP.

Progressive? Hardly.

You object to one adjective describing other parties: is that the totality of what you have to say about the toxic Tory policies and their inherent racism?

[animist]

Cross-party statement on resisting the Tories' toxic politics

Below is a joint statement signed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the Leader of Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood, and Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley, the co-leaders of the Green Party calling for progressive parties to work together to resist the ‘Tories' toxic politics’.

.... who, between them, at the last general election, gained fewer votes than UKIP.

Progressive? Hardly.

i assume that you mean, though it would be nice if you were a bit less cryptic, that gaining more votes equates to being more progressive. But on that argument, the Nazis were the most progressive party in 1930s Germany - is that what you think?

[animist]

In other words, the EU would rather deliberately penalise its citizens (and those of any other country) who have the affrontery not to subscribe to their grand (and failing) European project.

It's like someone grabbing your hair and saying "if you do as you are told, it won't hurt" Of course, there is an alternative. Stop grabbing other people's hair.

no, it is not like that at all. As I have said many times, it is about treating all members of a club equally, not allowing one of them to both stop observing the rules and exploiting the club's benefits

[Fia]

Cross-party statement on resisting the Tories' toxic politics

Below is a joint statement signed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the Leader of Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood, and Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley, the co-leaders of the Green Party calling for progressive parties to work together to resist the ‘Tories' toxic politics’.

.... who, between them, at the last general election, gained fewer votes than UKIP.

Really? I know UKIP had 3.9 million votes but would appreciate the evidence that the SNP, Plaid Cymru and Greens gained fewer. Of course it must be remembered how dreadfully undemocratic the Westmonster voting system is... and those neat recent boundary changes advantaging the Tories too.

Progressive? Hardly.

That rather depends on what sort of progress so many of us would like to see. And that's clearly not with with the sugar-coated nasty, racist, xenophobic, insular, uncaring, divisive, small-minded, patronising, full of false importance (we're a small insignificant cold group of islands with a questionable history), creepy, dangerous excuse for moral politicians and huge embarrassment to the rest of Europe (let alone the world) that the vile Tories are.

How can you not see, Nick, how dangerous this is?

[Alan H]

+1

[Zeff]

"There has been nonsense spoken on both sides." Mainly by Brexiteers.
"Brexiteers claimed that the £350 million a week could be better spent elsewhere. Which is true." No, it isn't. A good example of Brexit lies. That has been debunked many times.

Interest rates are low because growth is so low and the economy so weak. Now the plans to get the budget deficit in surplus have had to be abandoned and £Sterling has fallen to yet another low of US$1.24. It touched US$1.57 not long ago. I don't think the UK will recover from this. The destruction has been 'mild' so far, according to IMF's Ms Lagarde yesterday.

Quote: Shortly after currency markets opened in Asia on Friday, the pound lost as much as 6.1 per cent to $1.1841 in two minutes. The shortlived drop sparked speculation that it could have been triggered by a mistaken “fat finger” trade or a rogue automated algorithm, exacerbated by thinner liquidity during early Asian hours.
It was the currency’s lowest level since May 1985 and the biggest intraday drop against the dollar since its 11.1 per cent plunge on June 24 in the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the EU.
Source:
https://www.ft.com/content/dfb375be-8c2 ... ada1d123b1

And £Sterling has dropped by about 11% due to Brexit. I've been watching the currency rates for years.

We have now heard that Article 50 will be activated before Apr next, (2017). This article isn't all one needs to know about the difference between hard and soft Brexit (if you can get the page to load eventually)......
http://www.independe...y-a7342591.html
but I quote from it: "Let me be clear," said [PM] T. May. "We are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration again. And we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice," adding those wanting to do everything possible to preserve access to the single market were looking at Brexit the "wrong way".

What those words mean is that we must leave the European Economic Area (EEA) too, though she apparently didn't make that plain. Quote article:
National models for this sort of deal include Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, which are not members of the EU but have access to the single market by being part of the European Economic Area. In return [for that access], these countries must make payments into EU budgets and accept the "four freedoms" of movement of goods, services, capital and people. They are subject to EU law through the Luxembourg-based EFTA Court. Switzerland has a similar arrangement through a series of regularly updated treaties.
.......
Theresa May claimed people who talk about a “trade-off” between controlling immigration and trading with Europe are looking at things the “wrong way”, arguing that soft Brexit is "subverting" democracy and attempting to "kill" the process by "delaying it".

So it appears to me that both Theresa May and Ex-PM David Cameron campaigned for Remain, but at heart they were quite sanguine about a hard Brexit. I think this is one reason Brexit looks like it will happen. An intended hard Brexit does not look good for future negotiations with Europe, whether over trade or anything else.

And PM May still seems to think she can trigger Article 50 without a Parliamentary vote at Westminster (i.e. UK Parliament)....
"Northern Ireland's High Court is to begin hearing a legal challenge on Tuesday against British plans to leave the European Union without a vote in the Westminster parliament....Similar legal challenges have been launched in England and London's High Court is due to hear them later this month. It is expected their outcome will be appealed to the Supreme Court, the United Kingdom's highest judicial body, to deliver the final verdict on the constitutional question in December.
While overall 52 percent of the United Kingdom voted in favour of leaving the EU in June's referendum, a majority - 56 percent - of those living in Northern Ireland backed remaining in the bloc." Source:
http://uk.reuters.co...d-idUKKCN1232FW

The Brexiteers understanding is that the EU will effectively relinquish applying its core "four principles" to trade with the UK without any concessions from the UK. If Article 50 happens, we'll probably find out if that's true during the next decade of trade negotiations. The UK looks like it will remain in the EU until at least March, 2019, two years after Article 50 is triggered.

I still think the question for Scotland in the coming years is between the £ & the UK, or else the Euro and the EU. Hmmm. A better result would be abandoning Brexit and reform of Westminster, but there seems no appetite for that in England or Wales. 50 MPs fewer in the Commons is too little far too late.

[Alan H]

A better result would be abandoning Brexit and reform of Westminster, but there seems no appetite for that in England or Wales. 50 MPs fewer in the Commons is too little far too late.

Totally agree Westminster needs to be reformed, but I think the cutting down of the number of MPs from 650 to 600 is a diversion: the number is arbitrary and does not improve democracy. There are far bigger issues than the number we elect to represent us.

[Alan H]

Hammond tries to reassure Wall St on Brexit

Mr Hammond also met senior executives from Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, as he sought to allay concerns that Wall Street’s concerns are not being heeded.

The chancellor said that banks had nothing to fear and that the new immigration rules would only apply to those at the bottom of the employment ladder, not to highly paid financial executives.

“The problem is not highly skilled and highly paid bankers, brain surgeons and software engineers,” he said. “The issue we have to deal with is people with low skills competing for entry-level jobs.”

[Zeff]

In other words, the EU would rather deliberately penalise its citizens (and those of any other country) who have the affrontery not to subscribe to their grand (and failing) European project.

It's like someone grabbing your hair and saying "if you do as you are told, it won't hurt" Of course, there is an alternative. Stop grabbing other people's hair.

no, it is not like that at all. As I have said many times, it is about treating all members of a club equally, not allowing one of them to both stop observing the rules and exploiting the club's benefits

I think these quotes summarise the differences very clearly. In one view the EU is an encumbrance to the UK's democracy and economic progress which cannot be sufficiently reformed. The other view is of an imperfect (to put it mildly) organisation capable of reaching the best possible compromises between 28 sovereign states.

Certainly the EU should bear some of the responsibility for Brexit, but that seems to be widely accepted and different levels of membership and access to the EU is now de facto. Getting the EU not to apply its four core principles to the UK would be the challenge. We are geographically part of Europe.

[Nick]

Cross-party statement on resisting the Tories' toxic politics

.... who, between them, at the last general election, gained fewer votes than UKIP.

Really? I know UKIP had 3.9 million votes but would appreciate the evidence that the SNP, Plaid Cymru and Greens gained fewer.

Will this do? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results


Specifically, The SNP won 4.7% of the vote, the Greens 3.8% and Plaid .6%. Which, when I was at school, was less than 12.6% that UKIP won.

Of course it must be remembered how dreadfully undemocratic the Westmonster voting system is... and those neat recent boundary changes advantaging the Tories too.

The Boundary Commission is moving towards an equalisation of constituency sizes. It is not so much advantaging the Tories, but reducing the electoral bias against them.

Progressive? Hardly.

That rather depends on what sort of progress so many of us would like to see.

It does indeed.

And that's clearly not with with the sugar-coated nasty, racist, xenophobic, insular, uncaring, divisive, small-minded, patronising, full of false importance (we're a small insignificant cold group of islands with a questionable history), creepy, dangerous excuse for moral politicians and huge embarrassment to the rest of Europe (let alone the world) that the vile Tories are.

How can you not see, Nick, how dangerous this is?

Whatever adjectives you care to hurl, economics still matters. I won't bother to compile a list for non-Tories....

[Nick]

"There has been nonsense spoken on both sides." Mainly by Brexiteers.
"Brexiteers claimed that the £350 million a week could be better spent elsewhere. Which is true." No, it isn't. A good example of Brexit lies. That has been debunked many times.

Hmmm... Depends what you mean. By all means argue that leaving the EU will cost the UK more than £350 million a week, but that is not the same as saying that £350 million a week could be spent better than how the EU spends it.

Interest rates are low because growth is so low and the economy so weak.

True, but this applies the world over, even in the Euro-zone, which is in a far worse state than the UK.

Now the plans to get the budget deficit in surplus have had to be abandoned

for now. But the National Debt has ballooned from around 36% of GDP to around 85%. What do you think the limit might be? And don't you think it wise to reduce the debt to GDP percentage in good times, to allow flexibility in the bad? That is, after all, what Keynes believed.

and £Sterling has fallen to yet another low of US$1.24. It touched US$1.57 not long ago. I don't think the UK will recover from this.

It's recovered before. Why should this time be different? It is the uncertainty which is causing the problems, but it also confers advantages on the UK too.

The destruction has been 'mild' so far, according to IMF's Ms Lagarde yesterday.

...who admitted that their previous forecasts had proved wrong.

Quote: Shortly after currency markets opened in Asia on Friday, the pound lost as much as 6.1 per cent to $1.1841 in two minutes. The shortlived drop sparked speculation that it could have been triggered by a mistaken “fat finger” trade or a rogue automated algorithm, exacerbated by thinner liquidity during early Asian hours.
It was the currency’s lowest level since May 1985 and the biggest intraday drop against the dollar since its 11.1 per cent plunge on June 24 in the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the EU.
Source:
https://www.ft.com/content/dfb375be-8c2 ... ada1d123b1

And £Sterling has dropped by about 11% due to Brexit. I've been watching the currency rates for years.

Good. So you will know that flexibility in exchange rates is an important way in which different economies can vary, so that we don't have the sort of disaster we see in Greece.

We have now heard that Article 50 will be activated before Apr next, (2017). This article isn't all one needs to know about the difference between hard and soft Brexit (if you can get the page to load eventually)......
http://www.independe...y-a7342591.html
but I quote from it: "Let me be clear," said [PM] T. May. "We are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration again. And we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice," adding those wanting to do everything possible to preserve access to the single market were looking at Brexit the "wrong way".

What those words mean is that we must leave the European Economic Area (EEA) too, though she apparently didn't make that plain. Quote article:
National models for this sort of deal include Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, which are not members of the EU but have access to the single market by being part of the European Economic Area. In return [for that access], these countries must make payments into EU budgets and accept the "four freedoms" of movement of goods, services, capital and people. They are subject to EU law through the Luxembourg-based EFTA Court. Switzerland has a similar arrangement through a series of regularly updated treaties.

In a world which is supposed to be reducing tariffs, why is the EU going to reimpose them? When centuries of economics has shown that they are economically disadvantageous to both sides?
.......

Theresa May claimed people who talk about a “trade-off” between controlling immigration and trading with Europe are looking at things the “wrong way”, arguing that soft Brexit is "subverting" democracy and attempting to "kill" the process by "delaying it".

Democracy doesn't always produce the results that you might like......

So it appears to me that both Theresa May and Ex-PM David Cameron campaigned for Remain, but at heart they were quite sanguine about a hard Brexit.

Hmmm... I don't think one can accuse Cameron of being sanguine about a hard Brexit. He staked his whole career on remaining. He did, however, accept that he had not been able to convince the electorate. What are you suggesting he should have done? To resign was, IMO, the honourable thing to do.

I think this is one reason Brexit looks like it will happen. An intended hard Brexit does not look good for future negotiations with Europe, whether over trade or anything else.

And why is that? Because the UK wants to punish the EU, or could it be the other way round? How nice of our partners. They claim to love us so much they want us to stay, but when the divorce comes, they want to screw us for every penny we've got.

And PM May still seems to think she can trigger Article 50 without a Parliamentary vote at Westminster (i.e. UK Parliament)....
"Northern Ireland's High Court is to begin hearing a legal challenge on Tuesday against British plans to leave the European Union without a vote in the Westminster parliament....Similar legal challenges have been launched in England and London's High Court is due to hear them later this month. It is expected their outcome will be appealed to the Supreme Court, the United Kingdom's highest judicial body, to deliver the final verdict on the constitutional question in December.
While overall 52 percent of the United Kingdom voted in favour of leaving the EU in June's referendum, a majority - 56 percent - of those living in Northern Ireland backed remaining in the bloc." Source:
http://uk.reuters.co...d-idUKKCN1232FW

The clue is in the name: United Kingdom.

The Brexiteers understanding is that the EU will effectively relinquish applying its core "four principles" to trade with the UK without any concessions from the UK. If Article 50 happens, we'll probably find out if that's true during the next decade of trade negotiations. The UK looks like it will remain in the EU until at least March, 2019, two years after Article 50 is triggered.

Almost, but the UK agrees to let the EU carry on doing its own thing. We are not seeking to influence the Euro, say, or their immigration policy, or fiscal policy, or spending arrangements... Seems fair enough.

I still think the question for Scotland in the coming years is between the £ & the UK, or else the Euro and the EU. Hmmm. A better result would be abandoning Brexit and reform of Westminster, but there seems no appetite for that in England or Wales. 50 MPs fewer in the Commons is too little far too late.

Scotland would be mad to put up barriers with the rest of the UK, and lose the generous taxpayers money. They'd have to cut, cut, cut and cut again.