In or out?

[Alan H]

Latest post of the previous page:

This Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it? Trump will 'force' May's government to accept hormone beef and chlorinated chicken after Brexit

The UK will struggle to secure a free trade deal with the US without making major concessions on agriculture according to the former UK ambassador in Washington.

Sir Peter Westmacott warned that the Trump administration was playing "hardball" and would likely demand that the UK allowed the import of products such as hormone-treated US beef and chlorine-washed chickens.

That could do "serious damage" to the UK's farming industry, he said.

[Alan H]

Taking back control... No-deal Brexit poses major risk to public safety, say police leaders

[Alan H]

Brexiters, not Brussels bogeymen, must get blame for no deal

The Brexiter blame game is in full flow. The chances of a no-deal Brexit have risen to “60-40” thanks to the “intransigence” of the European Commission, claimed Brexiter Liam Fox in an interview with the Sunday Times.

Former Brexit secretary David Davis also piled in, saying the EU risked a “no deal by accident” by making the “massive miscalculation” that the UK was unwilling to walk away without a deal.

Let’s be clear: there’s no one to blame for this mess besides the Brexiters and those who have bent over backwards to facilitate their obsessions – Theresa May leading the way. It was Brexiters who pushed hard for a Leave vote without facing up to the consequences. It was they who pressured their puppet prime minister into triggering Article 50 without a plan. It was they who then propped May up as she squandered precious time with one unworkable Brexit plan after another.

It’s more than a bit rich for Fox to charge that the “theological obsession of the unelected” in Brussels is taking “priority over the economic wellbeing of the ­people of Europe”. He has blindly pursued Brexit despite overwhelming evidence it will be a disaster for the UK economy, whilst serving in a government which failed to secure a majority at the last general election for its platform.

Downing Street insists it doesn’t share the trade secretary’s fears of no-deal. Among their reasons for optimism must be signs that the EU is prepared to soften its proposal for an Irish border “backstop” to make it more politically palatable to the UK. If Northern Ireland can be fudged, May’s chances of scraping her almost unanimously unpopular Chequers deal through Parliament goes up.

But that’s bad news in itself. It risks a “blind Brexit” where we leave in March, still none the wiser about where we’re heading. Many of the more extreme Brexiters think they can then let the talks run into the ground, ditch the Irish backstop and crash out of the EU with no deal at the end of the transition period. All that does is push the chaos of a no-deal Brexit a couple of years down the line. It would be a catastrophe for the UK and for Ireland.

This begs the question: what do the Brexiters hope to achieve with their blame game? Is it a bid to pressure the EU to buy into May’s deal, thus securing the leave date in March 2019? This assumes the Brexiters still think Europeans are swayed by – or even pay attention to – the interminable Tory squabbling in the UK press. That’s living in fantasyland.

No, the blame game is targeted at a domestic audience. When no-deal warnings broke in early summer they received a very negative reaction from the public. Many Brexiters still want a clean break from the EU, but they also know chaos will be the immediate result. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s pledge that we’ll reap the rewards of Brexit in 50 years time is unlikely to wash. Therefore, if the very concept of Brexit is to survive the early turmoil, Brexiters need to place the blame elsewhere. Enter their decades-long bogeymen, the beastly bureaucrats in Brussels.

But Fox and his ilk can’t be allowed to get away with this. They are to blame for the misery which will be caused to ordinary people by Brexit. They don’t have the courage or the honesty to admit it.

[animist]

Taking back control... No-deal Brexit poses major risk to public safety, say police leaders

I hope, in case the worst happens, that the police will be in a position to consider criminal prosecutions against the idiots who will have created the crisis

[Alan H]

Taking back control... No-deal Brexit poses major risk to public safety, say police leaders

I hope, in case the worst happens, that the police will be in a position to consider criminal prosecutions against the idiots who will have created the crisis

Rest assured that they will all get off Scott-free. No one will shoulder the blame. No one will be held to account. No one will face charges. No one who caused any of this will suffer one iota.

[Alan H]

Expert Schools James O'Brien On Brexit With Evidence-Based Facts

An expert in international trade educated James O'Brien on what will happen after Britain leaves the European Union.

Jason Hunter has negotiated billions of pounds-worth of deals both inside and outside the European Union.

And he told James what will happen in the case of a no-deal Brexit - and spoiler alert, it doesn't look good.

Speaking about Article 50, Jason said: "There's no part of it that says we can get a deal? None of it. We leave. There is no deal to be done, there never was.

"It says the treaties will cease to apply.

"Once this stops, we can then begin to negotiate our way back in to all of these things.

"The EU are treating this as a legal, technical process. The UK have been playing silly political games, thinking that it's a negotiation. And it isn't."

He then went on to give his expertise on manufacturing, World Trade Organisation tariffs and international trade negotiations.

Afterwards, James said: "I'm supposed to school callers on Brexit. I'm not supposed to get schooled by them."

Watch the full, fascinating call at the top of the page.

[Alan H]

Who'd have guessed, eh? Lawyers say Gove proposals for Brexit environmental watchdog are useless

A new watchdog supposed to safeguard the UK’s environment after Brexit will lack the legal “teeth” necessary to hold the government to account, the country’s top lawyers have said.

Under current proposals, the body to be charged with overseeing the UK’s environmental protections would not be able to take the government to court, a key power under the current legislation which comes from the EU.

That would leave the watchdog without “teeth”, said the Bar Council, which represents the UK’s barristers, and would not replicate the current legal framework for safeguarding key issues from air and water quality to biodiversity.

[Alan H]

This Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it? Sterling slides below $1.29 as Brexit sell-off worsens

LONDON (Reuters) - The pound fell on Wednesday, slumping below $1.29 for the first time in almost a year, in a selloff fueled by investor concern that Britain will crash out of the European Union without a trade deal.

London-based traders said investors had moved to hedge against the currency’s going into free fall if Britain drops out of the EU with no deal in less than eight months’ time.

[Alan H]

[Alan H]

Phew... we're all going to be OK after all... DEFRA have got it all sorted and have done the sums...

screenshot-twitter.com-2018.08.09-11-36-49.png (905.63 KiB) Viewed 877 times

As Frank Swain pointed out on Twitter, that'll last us till May at least...

[animist]

Alan, I am not a brilliant computer user. Can you tell me the easiest way to forward stuff like this to Facebook, also to my local U3A Brexit group (which I am hoping will stage a militant, or even military, coup, against the B word)? Thanks

[Alan H]

Alan, I am not a brilliant computer user. Can you tell me the easiest way to forward stuff like this to Facebook, also to my local U3A Brexit group (which I am hoping will stage a militant, or even military, coup, against the B word)? Thanks

If you click on the video then the Youtube logo, it'll open the video in youtube - you can then copy the url from there. In this case it's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sju9laLqeCo

You can share that on FB.

Looking forward to the coup.

[Alan H]

A five-year moratorium on Brexit is needed to allow the UK and the EU to fully get to grips with the process

The UK is set to leave the EU in March next year, but many of the key issues remain unresolved and there is now perceived to be a very real prospect of the country leaving without a deal in place. For Helmut K Anheier, the answer is not a second referendum given another vote would do little to resolve the division that currently exists in the UK over Brexit. Rather, he proposes a moratorium on Brexit, lasting up to five years, which would allow both the UK and the EU to fully get to grips with the process.

[animist]

A five-year moratorium on Brexit is needed to allow the UK and the EU to fully get to grips with the process

The UK is set to leave the EU in March next year, but many of the key issues remain unresolved and there is now perceived to be a very real prospect of the country leaving without a deal in place. For Helmut K Anheier, the answer is not a second referendum given another vote would do little to resolve the division that currently exists in the UK over Brexit. Rather, he proposes a moratorium on Brexit, lasting up to five years, which would allow both the UK and the EU to fully get to grips with the process.

duh silly me for the previous post, thanks Alan. Duh silly rational person who wrote this article. A moratorium might be rational but our irrational country would just see it as the EU being desperate to keep us in its grasp

[Alan H]

This Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it? Brexit: What is the 'no deal' WTO option?

The Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, says the chances of a "no deal" Brexit are "increasing by the day". The International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, has been quoted as saying the chances of no deal are "60-40". And the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, says they are "uncomfortably high."

There seems to be a pattern developing here.

Recent debate about no deal - which would mean the UK leaving the European Union (EU) next year without any withdrawal agreement - has focused on the fact that the UK would automatically fall back on World Trade Organization (WTO) trade rules. Those rules would apply automatically to UK trade with the EU and other countries with which the EU has free-trade deals.

So what would WTO rules mean in practice?

[Alan H]

More than 100 seats that backed Brexit now want to stay in EU

More than 100 Westminster constituencies that voted to leave the EU have now switched their support to Remain, according to a stark new analysis seen by the Observer.

In findings that could have a significant impact on the parliamentary battle of Brexit later this year, the study concludes that most seats in Britain now contain a majority of voters who want to stay in the EU.

The analysis, one of the most comprehensive assessments of Brexit sentiment since the referendum, suggests the shift has been driven by doubts among Labour voters who backed Leave.

As a result, the trend is starkest in the north of England and Wales – Labour heartlands in which Brexit sentiment appears to be changing. The development will heap further pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to soften the party’s opposition to reconsidering Britain’s EU departure.

Researchers at the Focaldata consumer analytics company compiled the breakdown by modelling two YouGov polls of more than 15,000 people in total, conducted before and after Theresa May published her proposed Brexit deal on 6 July.

[Alan H]

The land of unicorns: How magical thinking conquered British politics

What was once a serious country is now slipping slowly into Alice-in-Wonderland delusion. British politics has been invaded by the realms of fantasy and there is a refusal - or an inability - to defer to reason or objective facts.

It has become abundantly clear that there will be no deal with the EU which will not involve significant unpalatable concessions on the part of the UK. Brexiters demand a 'clean' Brexit in which: a) the UK leaves the EU, the single market and the customs union b) frictionless trade with the EU continues c) there is no hard border in Northern Ireland d) there is no obligation to adhere to European law and regulations under the jurisdiction of the ECJ and e) freedom of movement ceases.

This proposition is a fantasy and will never be acceptable to the EU, for whom the four freedoms - goods, capital, services and labour - are indivisible. Wanting it to be true will not make it so.

[Alan H]

Hard-Brexit fantasists dislike hard economic realities

It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of fantasists. Worried that the government was not making enough preparations for the possibility of no deal being reached in the “negotiations” with the other 27 members of the EU, the voluble Brexiters within and without the cabinet called for evidence.

They have got it, in spades. The so-called impact assessments for no deal are, quite simply, horrifying. They were underlined recently by the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, who rightly drew attention to the messages coming through loud and clear from business, trade unions, the City and, not least, food suppliers, road hauliers, ports and airports.

Now, of course, when they have got what they asked for – namely, attention to the possibility of a cliff-edge Brexit – the Brexiters don’t like it and yell “project fear”.

[Alan H]

THis Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it? Sadiq Khan to ask crisis planners to examine risks of no-deal Brexit

London mayor Sadiq Khan is set to instruct crisis planners to prepare for Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal.

He said he had been left with "no choice" but to instruct the London resilience forum, which usually works on contingency plans for terrorism attacks and disasters such as the Grenfell Tower fire, to start examining the risks of a no-deal Brexit.

The body, which is made up of 170 organisations including the emergency services, local authorities and the NHS, would assess whether London is at risk of medicine and food shortages in the event of a no-deal.

Mr Khan, in an interview with the Guardian, said that the government was being "held hostage by the hard-Brexit zealots in Parliament" that made a no-deal Brexit more likely.

He said: "If the government had taken a different approach to the negotiations this would never have been an option, but we are now left with no choice but to plan for a no-deal scenario."

Mr Khan told the Guardian he would launch a consultation for London businesses to determine areas where City Hall could help them prepare for Brexit eventualities, but added that it was already clear the biggest threat was to the rights of European employees, who have not had their status guaranteed in the event of no deal.

He said: "The government's current offer of settled status relies on a successful outcome of the Brexit negotiations.

"If talks were to break down, the three million EU citizens living in the UK, around one million of whom are Londoners, would have no guarantee that their rights to stay and work would be protected.

"Businesses regularly report the difficulty they face in getting the talented workers they need, and to now threaten the Europeans they currently employ is completely and utterly reckless."

Prime minister Theresa May has previously pledged that "EU citizens living lawfully in the UK today will be able to stay", whatever the outcome of the negotiations.

[Alan H]

This Brexit thingy is all going tickety-boo, isn't it? 7 things we learned from the ‘No-Deal Brexit’ technical papers

No deal is not better than a bad deal – that’s the verdict from politicians after technical papers were released revealing the impact it could have on the UK.

[Alan H]

If you weren’t scared by the prospect of a no-deal Brexit before, you sure as hell should be now

I’m going to kick you in the teeth with a pair of steel toe-capped Doc Martens. Then I’ll go to work on you with a pair of knuckle dusters. But don’t you worry your sweet little head. It’ll be alright.

Some of the scare stories you’ll have read about the damage I’m going to do to you, they’re overdone. No, no, no, they’re “ridiculous”. You might end up with three months in hospital, a ruptured spleen and a requirement for extensive plastic surgery, but you won’t die!

That basically encapsulates the government’s position on a no-deal Brexit that we were told was all but unthinkable when the Conservative Party embarked upon this lunatic project. Recall the words of Stumbledore Liam Fox, now in charge of magicking up trade tie-ups that businesses say won’t benefit anyone, and certainly not them. He declared that securing a deal would be “the easiest thing in human history” during the Leave campaign’s electoral rule-breaking lie-a-thon.