In or out?

[Alan H]

Latest post of the previous page:

This Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it, coffee? Panasonic moving out of UK to avoid ‘troubling’ Brexit tax

Panasonic Europe’s chief executive Laurent Abadie said the move – from London to Amsterdam – is to avoid tax issues linked to the UK leaving the EU.

It is the latest multinational firm to pull jobs and operations from the UK.

Planemaker Airbus warned in June it could quit the UK if Britain leaves without a trade deal, while Unilever announced in March it was moving its corporate HQ to Rotterdam.

It is understood that Panasonic’s decision is linked to concerns that Japan could see the UK as a tax haven if it cuts corporation tax to attract businesses post-Brexit.

If it that was the case, Panasonic could face higher taxes back in Japan.

A number of other Japanese firms have revealed plans to move their European bases out of the UK, including banking giants Nomura Holdings, Daiwa Securities, MUFG and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.

Carmakers Honda and Nissan are also among a raft of Japanese firms that employ large workforces in the UK.

It is thought there are 879 Japanese companies employing 142,000 staff in Britain, including Honda and Nissan.

Other major firms that have announced plans to pull staff out of the UK due to Brexit include banking group HSBC, which plans to move up to 1,000 jobs to France, while JP Morgan has said around 1,000 front and back-office roles are likely to be relocated from London.

[Alan H]

This Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it? French minister says Theresa May’s Brexit plan is 'not possible' and she is 'surprised' at reports Macron has softened stance

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Until now, what the United Kingdom has proposed was involving something between Norway and Canada. The problem with the current proposal made by the British government is that it would join the benefits of Norway with the obligations of Canada, and this is not possible.

[Alan H]

Thread by @JasonJHunter: "It's not your fault. That's what I'm calling this thread. If you voted to leave the EU, it's really not your fault. I'm not blaming you. […]" #ItsNOTyourfault

Jason J Hunter
@JasonJHunter

It's not your fault. That's what I'm calling this thread. If you voted to leave the EU, it's really not your fault. I'm not blaming you. The people who are responsible for Brexit are the ones that LIED to you. #ItsNOTyourfault
2/ the people that need to be held to account are the heads of the snake. They told you that Turkey was joining the EU and 70 million Turkish Muslims would be coming to the UK. Not true. and they called Remain "project fear".#ItsNOTyourfault
3/ they told you that 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians were coming to live in your basement. Not true. And they call Remain "project fear" #ItsNOTyourfault
4/ they told you that the EU is run by unelected faceless bureaucrats and the EU tell the UK what to do. Not true. And they call Remain "project fear" #ItsNOTyourfault
5/ they told you that the UK would be forced to have up the GBP and accept the Euro. Not true. And they call Remain "project fear" #ItsNOTyourfault
6/ they told you we had mass uncontrolled immigration from the EU and they are taking your jobs. Not true. And they call Remain "project fear" #ItsNOTyourfault
7/ they told you that you couldn't get social housing because EU immigrants were taking them all. Not true. And they call Remain "project fear" #ItsNOTyourfault
8/ they told you that the NHS and schools were full of immigrants and your kids were suffering. Not true. And they call Remain project fear. #ItsNOTyourfault
9/ the fact is that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING they told you was a lie. It just wasn't true, it isn't true and never will be true. You've been bombarded with lies. #ItsNOTyourfault
10/ when people we are supposed to look up to repeat over and over again a pack of lies, who wouldn't want to believe them? They are supposed to be respected public figures and yet they've led you up the garden path.
11/ I don't blame people that voted leave. It's easy to fall for such a pack of convincing lies. We all have so much going on in our lives not everyone has time to Google everything and see if what they've been told is true. #ItsNOTyourfault
12/ BUT, when faced by someone who HAS checked the facts the heads of the snake completely fall apart and when questioned have no evidence. I don't blame you for voting to leave the EU, but I DO encourage
13/ you to have a listen to the Editor of Brexitcentral who has been one of the sources of the pack of lies that you've heard when he is faced with facts against his lies. #ItsNOTyourfault
14/14 what do you think? Will you take a few minutes to find out the facts? Be ANGRY. But be ANGRY with the people that deliberately lied to you. #ItsNOTyourfault

[Alan H]

Conservative party donor calls for second public vote on Brexit

“I think it is complete balderdash to say the people have spoken, therefore you can’t go back. The people can speak again – why can’t we have another vote on it,” Robertson told the Observer. “We had a brilliant deal with Europe. We had an opt-out on ever-closer union, we weren’t in the single currency and we were not in Schengen [the EU’s visa-free travel area]. We had a perfect arrangement. We are now going to end up with one where, at the end of things, we won’t have a final say.

“I’m not saying for a moment that it solves the underlying problem – which is the fact that some people have felt left behind. I think that in many ways, they have.”

[Alan H]

[Alan H]

We'd better get used to stuff like this: Britain loses medicines contracts as EU body anticipates Brexit

Britain’s leading role in evaluating new medicines for sale to patients across the EU has collapsed with no more work coming from Europe because of Brexit, it has emerged.

The decision by the European Medicines Agency to cut Britain out of its contracts seven months ahead of Brexit is a devastating blow to British pharmaceutical companies already reeling from the loss of the EMA’s HQ in London and with it 900 jobs.

[Alan H]

This Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it? No-deal Brexit: study warns of severe short-term impact on UK

The short-term impact of a no-deal Brexit on Britain’s economy would be “chaotic and severe”, jeopardising jobs and disrupting trade links, warn experts from the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe.

The Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, has said he believes 80% of the work on completing an exit deal with the EU27 is already done, as negotiations enter their final phase.

But his cabinet colleague Liam Fox recently suggested a no-deal scenario – which would occur if negotiations broke down, or both sides agreed to disagree – was the most likely outcome.

In a 30-page updated assessment of the impact of no deal, the thinktank said on Monday it would mean “the disappearance without replacement of many of the rules underpinning the UK’s economic and regulatory structure”.

Its analysis claimed that in the short term:

Food supplies could be temporarily disrupted – the beef trade could collapse, for example, as Britain is heavily reliant on EU imports, and would be forced to apply tariffs, in accordance with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
European health insurance cards, which allow British tourists free healthcare in the EU, would be invalid from Brexit day.
There would almost certainly have to be a “hardening of the border” between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, including some “physical manifestation”.
The status of legal contracts and commercial arrangements with EU companies would be unclear, as the UK would become a “third country” overnight.
Increased and uncertain processing times for goods at the border would be “nearly certain”, risking queues at Dover and forcing firms to rethink their supply chains.
In the longer term, UK in a Changing Europe’s experts say, the UK would have time to normalise its trading status, and agreements could be struck with the EU27 to tackle many other practical challenges.

[Alan H]

This Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it?This poll shows Brexit risks breaking up the United Kingdom

New poll finds a majority of decided voters in Scotland and Northern Ireland would back breaking up the United Kingdom if Brexit goes ahead.

52% of voters in Northern Ireland and 48% of voters in Scotland say they would back independence from the UK after Brexit.

However, support for breaking up the union would collapse if Brexit were stopped.

The findings come as leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson suggests Brexit talks have failed.

[Alan H]

It was never a plan in the first place, just yet more Tory wishful thinking: May struggles to hold Chequers plan together

There is growing unrest among Tories who are pushing for a hard Brexit and want the prime minister to go back to the drawing board.

And now election strategist Sir Lynton Crosby, who helped Boris Johnson win the London mayoralty, is reportedly involved in a bid to scupper the cabinet’s Chequers compromise.

Sir Lynton is believed to be manoeuvring to derail the PM’s EU withdrawal agenda with a co-ordinated national campaign.

The claims emerged as former minister and high-profile Tory MP Nick Boles, who backed Remain at the referendum, came out against the Chequers deal and Davis told The Marr Show he would vote against the plans.

Boles told the Sunday Telegraph that under current government plans, the UK faces “the humiliation of a deal dictated by Brussels”, which is treating the Chequers proposals as an “opening bid”.

The PM also dismissed calls for a “people’s vote” on the terms of withdrawal.

She said: “To ask the question all over again would be a gross betrayal of our democracy.”

May also said Britain would get through a no-deal outcome and “thrive”.

The PM’s aides have held talks with senior civil servants about whether to call a general election if a Brexit deal is rejected by MPs, according to the Sunday Times.

[Alan H]

The Tories will be in denial, of course. 2.6 million Leave voters have abandoned support for Brexit since referendum, major new study finds

More than 2.6 million people have abandoned their support for Brexit and now back staying in the EU, a major study has concluded.

If the huge number of Britons who have changed their mind had voted to stay in the EU in 2016, the referendum would have delivered a clear Remain verdict.

The data will add to the debate about whether the country now needs a new referendum, with millions having second thoughts about their Leave vote amid growing fears about Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal.

In a key finding that will particularly intensify pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to take a tougher stance against Brexit, the study found the overwhelming majority of those changing minds are Labour voters in seats the party currently holds.

It comes as Conservative divisions over Brexit deepened, with Theresa May attempting to slap down Boris Johnson after he wrote another article attacking her approach.

The Independent has launched its own campaign for a Final Say referendum, with almost three quarters of a million people having signed our petition demanding one so far.

The new study was carried out by data analysis experts Focaldata for pro-EU campaign group Best for Britain. It was based on two YouGov polls that together surveyed more than 15,000 people.

In total, it concluded that 2.6 million Leave voters have switched their support to Remain, while 970,000 have moved the other way – a net gain for the pro-EU side of 1.6 million.

The majority for Leave in 2016 was around 1.3 million, meaning if all those who have now switched their allegiance had acted in accordance with their new view at the ballot box, Remain would have won the vote by a greater margin.

[jaywhat]

We are part of Europe
how could we have left ?
Why did we do it?
IT WAS THE WRONG THING TO DO
..... IT WAS STUPID !

[Alan H]

We are part of Europe
how could we have left ?
Why did we do it?
IT WAS THE WRONG THING TO DO
..... IT WAS STUPID !

We've not left yet, but we're being dragged over the cliff edge by idiots for ideological reasons because a non-binding referendum during which we were lied to wholesale had a small majority who believed those lied.

[animist]

yet another aspect of the Brexit disaster: the unBritish shipping industry


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ney-claims

[Alan H]

yet another aspect of the Brexit disaster: the unBritish shipping industry


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ney-claims

Still waiting for a delivery date for the unicorns and rainbows.

[Alan H]

Brexit could drive up energy bills, say power firms

Brexit could drive up energy bills, power companies have said, because trade barriers threaten to increase the cost of importing gas and electricity across the Channel.

France’s EDF, multinational Unilever and the UK’s energy industry body urged politicians to avoid imposing tariffs or barriers on energy trading across borders.

In a letter to Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, and UK prime minister Theresa May, they said imposing costs on the use of interconnectors – electricity cables and gas pipelines between the UK and its European neighbours – would hit consumers and set back the battle against global warming.

The free flow of energy across interconnectors was necessary to keep “a level playing field that keeps costs down for consumers and ensures decarbonisation and security of supply,” the groups said. Interconnectors currently account for 6% of British power supplies, but that share is soon expected to rise to a fifth.

[Alan H]

What a waste on money when the Tories should be sending out the unicorn and rainbow delivery notices instead: Liam Fox spends tens of millions on firms warning of Brexit dangers

[Alan H]

Dominic Raab reduced to the lowest common denominator of stupidity

The Brexit secretary displays the confidence of a man who has forgotten just how sidelined and out of his depth he really is

The Commons got back to business after the summer recess with a deadening sense of deja vu. The House broke up in July with the Brexit secretary trying to convince himself as much as anyone else that the UK was genuinely getting somewhere in the EU negotiations, and it returned to find him doing much the same thing.

Dominic Raab was ostensibly in the House to give a statement updating MPs on the progress of his recent talks with Michel Barnier but, as there hadn’t been any, he chose instead to ad lib. The break has been kind to the Brexit secretary. In July, he looked tense and sweaty and would get tetchy if anyone dared contradict him, but now he appeared more urbane and confident at the dispatch box.

Unfortunately for him, it was the confidence of a man who had forgotten just how sidelined and out of his depth he really was.

Everything was going really well, Raab declared breathlessly. Apart from the bits that were going extremely badly. The talks had been injected with a new pace and intensity – they now ate sandwiches at the negotiating table rather than taking a two-hour break for lunch – and agreement had been reached in some key areas. The EU and the UK had settled on who would do the photocopying (they would take it in turns) and only semi-skimmed milk would be used for the coffee.

There were still a few problems, mind. Northern Ireland was still proving a bit tricky but he was sure it would get resolved one way or another without war breaking out. There again, maybe not. On the bright side, a no-deal wouldn’t be as bad as all that. We would be keeping a six-week stockpile of medicines, so there was a fair chance that no one would die unnecessarily immediately. And if everyone put aside a few cans of baked beans, then no one should starve while the government tried to come up with a better plan.

“There are some risks to a no-deal scenario,” Raab generously conceded. But, one way or another, the UK would be ready for Brexit next March. His voice rather tailed off as he added that last bit, as he realised the fundamental absurdity of what he was saying. The UK is going to be ready for nothing. The only Brexit we are going to get is the one the government manages to smuggle past both the EU and parliament. And right now it doesn’t have a clue what that might be.

Keir Starmer sighed. The shadow Brexit secretary had hoped that Raab might prove to be a bit brighter than the dim David Davis, but there was clearly something about the nature of the job that reduced every incumbent to the lowest common denominator of stupidity. Still, Starmer was willing to do his job even if Raab wasn’t up to doing his, so he read out the same checklist of questions that he always asked on these occasions. Questions he knew weren’t going to be answered.

Was Raab aware that time was running out to get a deal? In July he had said he would have the outline of a deal by October. Now he was suggesting it would come in November at the earliest. When was he going to get round to dealing with Northern Ireland? And was he aware that saying a no-deal wouldn’t be the end of the world wasn’t the most inspiring rhetoric?

The Brexit secretary bristled. He doesn’t like having his obvious shortcomings pointed out so forensically. He was doing better than Labour would have, he snapped. Hard to refute, but equally hard to believe.

There was one upside for Raab. As everyone knows that it is now the prime minister who is calling the shots and the Brexit secretary has less authority than the four pot plants, none of the big-name Tories such as Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Ken Clarke and Anna Soubry, bothered to turn up to give him a hard time. The worst of the friendly fire was the deranged Owen Paterson insisting that Northern Ireland could easily be sorted out with technology that hadn’t been invented yet. Someone call a doctor.

So it was left to Labour’s Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper and Chuka Umunna to deliver a few home truths. The Chequers deal was dead in the water. Barnier said so. The Tory right said so. And Labour said so. So wouldn’t the government be better off coming up with a new plan and working out what it was going to do if it couldn’t get any deal through parliament.

“Ssssh,” whispered Raab. This was the kind of careless talk that could cost lives if the EU got wind of it. At this point some MPs began to wonder if Raab actually had been born yesterday.

[animist]

What a waste on money when the Tories should be sending out the unicorn and rainbow delivery notices instead: Liam Fox spends tens of millions on firms warning of Brexit dangers

the stupidity of Brexit knows no bounds - this goes for the Raab post too

[Alan H]

What a waste on money when the Tories should be sending out the unicorn and rainbow delivery notices instead: Liam Fox spends tens of millions on firms warning of Brexit dangers

the stupidity of Brexit knows no bounds - this goes for the Raab post too

The Tories had the opportunity to replace Davies with someone intelligent and competent. Instead, they gave the job to Raab. Not that there was anyone else, mind you. If there is any intelligent and competent Tory MP, they wouldn't want the job of pushing us off the Brexit cliff.

[Alan H]

Theresa May under fire as less than one in five now expect a good Brexit deal for Britain, damning survey finds

ewer than one in five voters now expect Britain to secure a good Brexit deal as Theresa May’s plans remain under fire, according to damning new research.

The proportion of people expecting a good deal has slumped dramatically from 33 per cent in February last year to just 17 per cent in June 2018, the survey showed.

The data was conducted and shared ahead of the publication of the Prime Minister’s heavily criticised Chequers plan for the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

Some 57 per cent of voters now predict Britain will end talks with a bad deal, up from 37 per cent since February 2017. That’s according to the survey for NatCen Social Research.

[Alan H]

TUC boss says ‘people deserve a say’ on UK's future relationship with the EU

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady has told The Independent that “people deserve a say” on the UK’s future relations with the EU.

Speaking amid preparations for the 150th anniversary congress that starts in Manchester on Sunday, O’Grady went on: “I don’t think people have enough trust that Parliament alone can do the job.

“I don’t think they want to outsource that decision. Quite genuinely, I don’t want to pre-judge our own democracy, but I feel that appetite is growing.”

The TUC is due to discuss its official position, which O’Grady will give voice to, at the event.

However, the union movement is increasingly in favour of giving people a final say, putting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn under pressure to shift his party's position.