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In or out?

...on serious topics that don't fit anywhere else at present.
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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2701 Post by Alan H » November 17th, 2017, 5:51 pm

Latest post of the previous page:

A thread about Brexit and medicines regulation. Funny that this is something else that wasn't mentioned on the ballot paper...
Okay, then peeps. LONG THREAD. Put down your union flag for a moment and just take some information in. I will try to explain the approaching #Brexit nightmare using a single, calm, factual example, so far largely ignored. I urge you to think, share and talk about this. Ready?

The UK has no structures or agency of its own for approving and licensing medicines. It relies almost exclusively on the European Medicines Agency. The MHRA is an ancillary organisation. In precisely 15 months UK access to the EMA ends; abruptly if the "no deal" voices prevail.

Where are the UK's preparations for replacing this vital framework? The answer is: Non-existent. Not even embryonic. Just a statement by Hunt this summer that the UK "will look to continue to work closely” with the EMA, but we're ready "to establish our own system if necessary".

The EU started planning to relocate the EMA (currently in London) the week after Art50 was notified to much tabloid chagrin, the idea that EU agencies should be located in the EU having come as a shock. That's just RELOCATING. We, who actually need to REPLACE it, have done nowt.

Having worked for a similarly sized gov't agency for most my professional life, I estimate that in order to "establish our own system" and have everything in place to take over March 2019, we needed to have started two years ago. And even that would be tight. I'm deadly serious.

The setting up will require complex, technical, primary legislation, which will be hotly contested between strong counter-pulling lobbies and interests (big pharma, NHS, patient groups, ethics cmtees) and require extensive consultation, expert advice and debate.

Only at THAT point, can you start looking for a CEO, a board, expert staff, support, training, a building etc. In all honesty, 15 months isn't even enough time if you were ONLY looking at the recruitment of such technical staff. Especially in such a niche area.

Then there's cost. Even by Eurosceptic estimates the UK pays a fifth of an agency like the EMA. It would need to set up the UK equivalent for a fifth of the cost *just to break even*. This is fantasy of course. Testing, assessing and licensing a new drug is inelastic, cost-wise.

This exposes the myth of "saving lots of money by leaving the EU". Much of the money we paid was to centralise essential tasks, like the medicines regime, with huge efficiency and time savings. Not dealing with multiple authorities also reduces costs for pharma cos, ergo prices.

This simple example also puts to bed any "they need us more than we need them" nonsense. Yes, we are an important contributor to the EU. Yes we are also an important market. They *want* us, for sure. But we *need* them. Structurally. Desperately. Not forever, but certainly now.

The day the UK leaves, everything in the EU27 will function PRECISELY as it does now. Money will be tighter. Some of their sectors will face challenges. But none of their rules or processes change. They face no transition. We do -in a myriad ways- and are totally unprepared.

Because medicines is only one of a 100 such regimes that need replacing which will fall on the same unfathomably stretched civil service to do; the same exhausted people trying to also do the other 99 things, as well as renegotiate 700 treaties, on TOP of their ordinary duties.

So, what happens if there's "no deal", in this, as in a thousand other areas for which the UK has simply made NO preparations? This isn't fluff. It's life and death. Sick people will end up waiting for years for available treatments, stuck in a bottleneck of unapproved meds.

Does your faith and patriotism have the magical power to make technical legislation and multidisciplinary agencies just spring into being? Is it unpatriotic to raise the #Brexit alarm or quite the reverse? Am I a remoaner for thinking about this? Or are you a fool for not?

END
PS. Please understand: I'm not suggesting that leaving the EU is impossible. I'm saying it is impossible to do without major trauma, within such an insanely short timeframe, especially for a govt that seems unaware of the complicated fallout and uninterested in mapping it out.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2702 Post by Alan H » November 18th, 2017, 12:03 pm

Why don't the Tories just do a U-turn on this whole Brexit nonsense? Government hints at retreat on EU Withdrawal Bill amendment
A senior Cabinet minister has hinted the Government could retreat on its plan to formally write a date for Brexit into UK law, amid a backlash from Tory MPs.

Justice Secretary David Lidington admitted ministers will "listen" to concerns over a proposed amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill, which aims to enshrine into the legislation the date Britain leaves the EU as 11pm on 29 March 2019.

This week, as the bill returned to the House of Commons for line-by-line scrutiny by MPs, a sizeable number of Conservative backbenchers voiced their anger at the amendment as they fear it could hinder the UK's flexibility in divorce negotiations.

Theresa May's proposal, which was only announced a week ago, was branded "mad" and "silly" by prominent pro-Remain Tories, with their number prompting suggestions the Government could face a humiliating defeat over the amendment.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: In or out?

#2703 Post by animist » November 18th, 2017, 1:49 pm

the Irish Question - so often (remembering my A Level history) a thorn in British flesh. Now ISTM the most intractable side of the silly Brexit project. Everyone wants a soft border to continue between Britain and the Republic, but how can it be maintained if Britain leaves the Customs Union? The DUP won't countenance effective separation from mainland UK if the customs border is in the Irish Sea, but the EU cannot countenance a genuinely soft border if Britain insists on leaving the CU. Maybe Ireland will simply veto any settlement involving Hard Brexit from the CU, a fitting vengeance for the centuries of imperial exploitation by its bigger neighbour

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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2704 Post by Alan H » November 18th, 2017, 6:34 pm

animist wrote:the Irish Question - so often (remembering my A Level history) a thorn in British flesh. Now ISTM the most intractable side of the silly Brexit project. Everyone wants a soft border to continue between Britain and the Republic, but how can it be maintained if Britain leaves the Customs Union? The DUP won't countenance effective separation from mainland UK if the customs border is in the Irish Sea, but the EU cannot countenance a genuinely soft border if Britain insists on leaving the CU. Maybe Ireland will simply veto any settlement involving Hard Brexit from the CU, a fitting vengeance for the centuries of imperial exploitation by its bigger neighbour
If only someone had anticipated these little local issues before the referendum...
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2705 Post by Alan H » November 18th, 2017, 6:34 pm

Minister forced to correct claim on Article 50 reversibility
The newest Brexit minister has been forced to retract a claim in the House of Lords that Article 50 is irreversible. Responding to a question from Matt Ridley on Monday, Martin Callanan said Article 50 was irreversible, adding: “It is also stated by the European Commission that Article 50, once invoked, is irrevocable unless there is political agreement on it.”

This is incorrect, as John Kerr, one of the authors of Article 50, explained in a speech on Friday. Kerr and two other peers today extracted a retraction from Callanan. His Brexit error lasted all of three days.

Callanan, a pro-Brexit peer who this year attacked the “ayatollahs” in the EU, only came into his Dexeu post on October 27, after Joyce Anelay became the third minister to leave the department in four months. His primary role is shepherding Brexit legislation through the House of Lords, an unenviable task made more challenging by his apparent failure to get on top of the facts.

The government refuses to release legal advice on whether Article 50 can be revoked. But Callanan’s retraction, and the government’s failure to rebut Kerr’s opinion, speaks volumes. It is not too late to change our minds.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2706 Post by Alan H » November 18th, 2017, 6:38 pm

The Brexit Veto: How and why Ireland raised the stakes

There really is no Ireland border solution is there? Not without the collapse of the UK or the collapse of the DUP/Tory agreement, anyway...
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: In or out?

#2707 Post by animist » November 18th, 2017, 10:26 pm

like anything to do with Brexit, this is all pissing in the wind. There'll be some relatively late stitchups which make any thinking at present to be of little importance

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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2708 Post by Alan H » November 18th, 2017, 11:11 pm

Alan H wrote:The Brexit Veto: How and why Ireland raised the stakes

There really is no Ireland border solution is there? Not without the collapse of the UK or the collapse of the DUP/Tory agreement, anyway...
Read this pile of steaming shit from that self-serving buffoon, Boris Johnson: UK and Ireland can strengthen ties via Brexit: article by Boris Johnson
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: In or out?

#2709 Post by animist » November 19th, 2017, 12:08 am

I guess that I find articles like this, by a professional, aimed at professionals and with a cheerfully practical lack of oratory, more scary than the stuff of politics - which still gets dismissed as scaremongering:

http://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-forme ... ansitional

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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2710 Post by Alan H » November 19th, 2017, 12:54 am

animist wrote:I guess that I find articles like this, by a professional, aimed at professionals and with a cheerfully practical lack of oratory, more scary than the stuff of politics - which still gets dismissed as scaremongering:

http://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-forme ... ansitional
Frightening, isn't it? And so unnecessary. What a fucking mess the Tories have got us into.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2711 Post by Alan H » November 19th, 2017, 2:47 am

We shouldn’t even be contemplating leaving the single market
We are now just 16 months from Brexit – the biggest shock to the UK economy in living memory. And over the weeks ahead parliament will have to decide what the UK’s negotiating goals for a future economic relationship with our European neighbours should be.

The choice you make will determine the jobs and prosperity of millions of people across Britain, and quite possibly the future shape of the United Kingdom. Once we have left the EU, amending our status will need the legal agreement of 27 other member states, a process taking years of painfully slow negotiation. So you will want to get it right first time.

What are the facts? We know the rest of the EU contains 450 million of the richest consumers on the planet, in a wide-ranging single market and customs union. Over the last quarter-century, the British economy has become highly integrated with this market for goods and increasingly for services too – now 80% of our economy. The value of trade flowing through Dover and the Channel tunnel has more than tripled since open EU markets became a reality. Foreign investment has come to Britain to serve integrated EU supply chains and just-in-time production. A range of supporting business services from insurance to software has boomed. Asian and American companies have grown their European headquarters here as the market has expanded

Britain’s science and research base has benefited from that outside investment. Long-term US investors have been joined by newcomers from Japan, Korea and now Chinese firms like Huawei, developing links with our universities and startups as they trade across Europe using the digital single market that Britain has helped to develop. Free movement of people and data has attracted the best European talent to our world-class research teams, making Britain the favoured base for digital and life science startups, despite strong competition from elsewhere in northern Europe.

Our service sector is the leading success story in financial, legal and business services across the EU, creating thousands of well-paid jobs in London and many regional centres including Leeds, Belfast, Glasgow and Norwich. The recent opening of the audiovisual market has made the UK film and TV industry the new hub of European broadcasting. Air travel, telecoms, energy, medicines … the list of direct UK beneficiaries from the single market’s shared regulatory structures is a long one. All of them depend on EU membership. So after we leave, what best protects these benefits?

One option would be to retain effective economic ties through negotiating to join the European Economic Area (EEA) in some form. That would not be straightforward. It would cost money, require us to follow existing and new EU regulations, accept the court of justice as an economic referee of fair play and continue with some mutual free movement of workers. But it would keep prosperity and jobs that would otherwise be lost as firms and investors sought to avoid new costs and uncertainties. The alternative – leaving all EU legal structures – would make us more protected, more regulated and poorer. Building border posts, enforcing rules of origin certificates, paying for thousands of new customs officials and setting up 30 or more exclusively national regulators would cost money which would either be diverted from other public services or need higher taxation.

The delays and complexity of negotiating a bilateral free trade deal with the EU inevitably make UK firms less competitive, and chill foreign investment into key growth sectors such as cars, aircraft chemicals and pharmaceuticals, on which we have relied for decades. Inevitably, large parts of our service businesses would lose their current passport into the EU market. UK qualifications, from accounting to hairdressing, would no longer be accepted across Europe. UK goods and services would have to prove that they continued to meet EU standards, a time-consuming and costly process which would undercut our firms’ ability to compete successfully in the single market.

That option leaves us permanently disadvantaged in EU markets. But some argue that over time there is a third way, a wider world waiting for us to join them and prosper if we can only free ourselves from Europe. Is there? The critical importance of the EU’s single market for Britain is simply a matter of arithmetic. We could double trade to China and triple trade to Australia without making up for half for the service access we would lose in Europe. The Germans already sell more than three times as much to China than the UK from inside the EU. t is hard to argue that the single market is somehow holding us back from being more successfully globally. And it is size of that market which has helped the EU negotiate over thirty preferential trade deals, with more underway.

Even those countries that seek better access to UK agricultural markets, which want more visas for IT software engineers to work here, or more British healthcare funding for their own suppliers, are clear that the European single market is the most important prize. It is, after all, five times our size. So before doing deals with us, they want to know what level of access they will have from the UK into that larger EU market.

The US is a protected market for many services, and even the EU’s negotiating clout has been unable to open it very far. We can choose to follow US rules in farming, healthcare and product safety, at the expense of access to bigger European markets. But no one seriously expects US regulators to guarantee our bankers, lawyers and accountants the market access they enjoy in Europe today.

Is it likely that making our firms less open to Europe would make them more successful in global markets? We have spent the past 40 years opening up the UK economy to stimulate growth and competition. A vote to leave the EU single market would take us back to a protected, smaller-scale economy – while our competitors move towards digital manufacturing across a huge European home market. So vote to leave the single market if you must. But do it with your eyes open. A long and tortuous free trade negotiation with the EU leading to something like the EU-Canada deal, with very limited services access, will damage UK competitiveness and leave us with less investment, lower living standards and long queues at the border.

There is no credible free trade deal outcome able to deliver the guaranteed market access, shared regulation and consumer protection that Britain needs. Wishful thinking does not create well-paid jobs, pay taxes or fund public services.

If you are not sure what to do, wait. Keep the UK in the EEA for a transition period and judge for yourselves if we can find a realistic alternative that meets our economic needs. But please don’t throw away our hard-won competitiveness, our knowledge-based economy which attracts global talent and investment, and our successful services sector exporting across Europe because of false promises that we can leave the single market and everything will be fine. That is not what the facts tell us.

Sir Martin Donnelly was permanent secretary at the department for international trade
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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animist
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Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: In or out?

#2712 Post by animist » November 19th, 2017, 11:20 am

when I first glanced at the author's affiliation I read it that he is permanent secretary at the department for international trade. Then I read the article and thought - funny, what does he do there, given his opinions? Then I Iooked again at the affiliation, and of course it says that he WAS permanent secretary at the department for international trade

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Alan H
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Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2713 Post by Alan H » November 19th, 2017, 11:45 am

animist wrote:
when I first glanced at the author's affiliation I read it that he is permanent secretary at the department for international trade. Then I read the article and thought - funny, what does he do there, given his opinions? Then I Iooked again at the affiliation, and of course it says that he WAS permanent secretary at the department for international trade
I'm sure he wasn't/isn't the only one there who understands the damage Brexit is doing...
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2714 Post by Alan H » November 19th, 2017, 11:45 am

Why is there so little Bregret and what might change that?
The second possibility is far more conceivable. It is to redirect the narrative of blame on to the leading figures in the Leave campaign. On to all of those who repeatedly and in various ways claimed that leaving would be easy, and would lead to sunny uplands where cake would be both had and eaten. And on to all those who failed to mention, or denied, the consequences on things as diverse as nuclear medicine and the Irish border. In short, it is far more likely that leave voters will accept the proposition that they were fooled by politicians – as indeed they were – than that they fooled themselves. It is also likely to have far more traction than, for example, repeatedly insisting that the referendum was only advisory, or that only 37% of the electorate voted to leave. The idea that politicians lie is not, after all, an especially outlandish one nor is it an especially complex one. If leave voters – not all of them, but just, say, 20% of them – come to believe that they were lied to about Brexit then Bregret becomes a possibility.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: In or out?

#2715 Post by animist » November 19th, 2017, 12:22 pm

I think he is right on everything till the end paragraphs, because he excludes the possibility that Brexit may collapse even without a large swing away from popular support for it. It may collapse if circumstances dictate that it must, and the government (which may not be a Tory one in a year) sees that it will be even more unpopular for continuing the project, once it is too late, than it will be for abandoning it.

BTW I think that the term which the author could not recall is self-serving bias, and I think this is an important point:

[Wiki article] Self-serving bias

Self-serving bias is the tendency for cognitive or perceptual processes to be distorted by the individual's need to maintain and enhance self-esteem.[57] It is the propensity to credit accomplishment to our own capacities and endeavors, yet attribute failure to outside factors,[58] to dismiss the legitimacy of negative criticism, concentrate on positive qualities and accomplishments yet disregard flaws and failures. Studies have demonstrated that this bias can affect behavior in the workplace,[59] in interpersonal relationships,[60] playing sports,[61] and in consumer decisions.[62]

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Alan H
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Re: In or out?

#2716 Post by Alan H » November 19th, 2017, 12:51 pm

The Brexiteer's' border issues explained in one diagram:
DO7q5YFW0AImCtJ.jpg
DO7q5YFW0AImCtJ.jpg (64.48 KiB) Viewed 761 times
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2717 Post by Alan H » November 19th, 2017, 5:24 pm

This Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it? Brexit: Rolls Royce warns border checks will disrupt global supply chain
Rolls-Royce worries border checks after Britain leaves the European Union will disrupt its global supply chain and is looking at measures to offset the rise in national protectionism that it represents, a member of its executive leadership said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the launch of a new partnership with Indian software firm Tata Consultancy Services, the enginemaker’s head of strategy and marketing Ben Story laid out a range of concerns over the Brexit process for one of Britain’s highest profile industrial exporters.

“We are worried about border checks and whether that will make our supply chain flow less fluidly,” Mr Story, formerly head of Citibank’s UK Investment Banking and Broking unit, told Reuters.

“We are worried about the talent and making sure that we always get the right talent. We also work very closely with European universities and we worry that may break down and some of the research funding may fall away. We worry about regulations.”

Business leaders told Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday that she needs to speed up negotiations with the European Union amid concern that Britain will crash out of the world’s biggest trading bloc in 2019 without a deal.

Slow progress in the talks with Brussels has unsettled businesses and drawn warnings that unless a transition is agreed soon, some may begin activating Brexit contingency plans - which may include moving out of the country.

“We built our whole supply chain assuming a kind of a globalising world and an open world,” Mr Story said.

“What Brexit has made us do is ... step back and think about that a little more. Going forward we need to be thoughtful and careful about where we make investments, where we build capabilities, how to build in redundancy.”

Mr Story said the engineering major has “a lot of flexibility and choice” as it has manufacturing facilities outside Britain, in Germany and Singapore among others.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2718 Post by Alan H » November 19th, 2017, 6:39 pm

Hammond's 'no unemployed' gaffe fuels belief that Tories don't care
Philip Hammond’s gaffe that “there are no unemployed” is damaging despite his best efforts to explain it away because it feeds into two widely held beliefs: that the Tories don’t care about the unemployed and that the chancellor may be good at the figures but has no wider political vision.

Hammond is already on a yellow card for lacking political nous after his budget shambles in March when he had to withdraw a planned rise in national insurance. He had failed to notice it clashed with a Tory manifesto commitment. A second botched budget on Wednesday could prove politically fatal.

The chancellor asked Andrew Marr: “Where are the unemployed? There are no unemployed,” and then tried to repair the damage by explaining on a later programme that he had been making the point that previous waves of automation had not left millions of people unemployed.

But he had left the clear impression that the 1.4 million people on Britain’s official unemployment figures not only do not count, but they do not exist.

He fed into decades of political dogma that the Tories simply do not care about the unemployed. His remark carried an echo of Norman Lamont’s notorious phrase at the height of the 1991 recession that “rising unemployment and the recession have been a price well worth paying to get inflation down”.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2719 Post by Alan H » November 20th, 2017, 12:32 am

Brexit talks: Parallel universes of UK and EU negotiators
The EU insists that if the UK wants to leave the group yet maintain a relationship, it can only do so in accordance with club rules.

The heads of EU institutions, like Jean-Claude Juncker, like to repeat that the UK is the one who has decided to go. The EU club won't change its rules (such as single market regulations), so the EU argument goes, just to appease a departing party.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2720 Post by Alan H » November 20th, 2017, 11:32 am

The Guardian view on Brexit and the Irish border: Britain’s shameful dereliction
From start to finish, Conservative Brexiters have shown that they simply could not care less about Ireland. In the referendum campaign, few gave even a passing thought to the impact of a leave vote on the relationship between Northern Ireland, the rest of the UK and the republic. When the vote went their way – though they lost in Northern Ireland – the Brexiters then gave bland assurances that the decision would make absolutely no difference to the island’s soft border, the legacy of the peace process, or north-south and east-west cooperation.

This was and is nonsense. The Irish government warned immediately that serious difficulties had been created by the vote and by Theresa May’s wish to leave the single market and customs union. Dublin cannot be faulted for the reasoned and patient way it insisted these issues would have to be solved. In practice, though, none was taken seriously in London. The peace agreements had been the fruit of long years of cooperative work. But the neighbourly mentality that made them possible has gone missing in London.
To much of Europe, Brexit appears to be an exercise in British self-harm, which it is. But in Ireland Brexit is potentially lethal too. If the UK government’s policy is followed, the border between north and south will become hard not soft, guarded not unguarded, controlled not free. The consequences of this change could be deeply destructive to the peace process and secure life. But, even more than that, they would be a gratuitous act of hostility towards the Irish economy and people. Even if the history did not matter, that would be unforgivable.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#2721 Post by Alan H » November 20th, 2017, 11:49 am

Michel Barnier warns Theresa May the EU 'will not wait' for a new free trade deal with Britain
LONDON — Michel Barnier has warned UK government that the European Union "will not wait" for Britain to make its position clear on what sort of future free trade arrangement it wants with the bloc.

Speaking at the Centre for European Reform on Monday, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator said an ambitious free trade agreement (FTA) with Britain is "possible" but warned that Brussels had priorities other than the UK.

"The EU will, of course, be ready to offer its most ambitious FTA approach and a future partnership should not be limited to trade," Barnier said this morning.

"It should be based on our common values. We need to work together to protect the security of our citizens, to combat crime and terrorism, and logically we'll need to cooperate and foreign defence challenges.

"But in none of these fields will the EU wait for the UK. We must continue to advance. We will continue creating new free trade agreements in addition to the ones we already have with 60 countries.

"We will continue to work on our internal market and make it for digitalisation. We will step up our investment in research and innovation. And we'll continue to use the strength of the internal market to shape globalisation."

Barnier covered a range of issues relating to Britain's departure from the EU as Prime Minister Theresa May reportedly prepares a £40 billion financial settlement offer, which she hopes will break the deadlock in talks.

The EU's head Brexit co-ordinator said he "regrets" how the no-deal option comes up "so often" in UK debate, adding that a no deal Brexit "cannot be a positive outcome" for either side.

In a frank speech to an audience in Brussels, Barnier said "Brexit means Brexit everywhere," and confirmed that Britain will lose its financial passporting rights as part of its exit from the EU.

"The legal consequence of Brexit is that the UK financial service providers lose their EU passport. This passport allows them to offer their services to a market of 500 million consumers and 22 million business," Barnier said.

More than 5,400 British firms rely on passporting rights to business in the European Union, bringing in around £9 billion in revenue to Britain every year.

Barnier also urged the British side to propose a workable means of avoiding the return of a hard border to Northern Ireland.

"The UK said it will continue to apply EU laws on its territories — but not all rules. It's therefore unclear what rules will apply to Northern Ireland after Brexit and what UK is willing to commit to avoid a hard border.

"Those who wanted Brexit must offer solutions."

Barnier also reiterated the EU's desire to preserve the integrity of the single market and shot down suggestions that Britain could enjoy parts of membership without being a full participant.

"Those who say Britain can enjoy parts of the single market must stop this contradiction," he said.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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