Free trade agreement.

[Corcory]

People keep going on about the fact that we can't be in the single market without agreeing to freedom of movement but why can't we negotiate a free trade agreement like the other countries in the world that are not in the EU?

The US are just annoyed that the UK were the main way they were going to get TTIP agreed with the EU and Brexit seems to have killed that agreement. However the US always think militarily when it comes to their friends. They know the UK is the only EU member (+Poland and Ukraine) that meets their NATO targets, plus there are some key US military bases and installations in the UK and British terriotories around the world. A weak UK would not be good for the US. The US has recently made noises at their annoyance that most the EU don't actually contribute to NATO.

celeste the uk is already on track to be a yuan trading and pricing centre though this is now at risk because it was agreed on the basis of the City's EU financial passport

Why would China give up Hong Kong's status as financial gateway to their market? It suites them very well to govern Hong Kong based on one country, two systems where Hong Kong can compete as a financial centre based on a western legal system that is acceptable to non Asian businesses and investors and it's access to Chinese markets, and indeed providing a haven for the illegal overseas investments of wealthy Chinese individuals as shown by the Mossack Fonsecca leak (The Hong Kong office was the second largest office after Panama and specialised in finding destinations for money being funnelled illegally out of Asia ). The Chinese economy is heavily managed by the government and outside of Hong Kong the rule of law is still largely organic and based on networks of power rather than an independent judiciary etc. Hong Kong investors and businessmen have the advantage of being a part of those networks of power and therefore to wheeler deal effectively in that environment. Most Chinese business does actually trade on the basis that the opportunity that corruption offers outweighs the risks of being caught because there is no consistent rule of law and the government has little consistent control of it's local and even regional officials so that its main method of control is via crackdowns. The opportunities opened up by corruption, sometimes the only way to unlock business opportunities, outweigh the risks (though it is of a bullet through the back of the neck ) of being caught. British businesses that do do business directly in China have to accept the risks and operate via Chinese intermediaries who understand how to operate effectively in that environment. Even so some come unstuck en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Lijun_incident. You may also have heard of people marching in the streets of Hong Kong at risk of imprisonment, and worse, finding themselves spirited away into China to face the unfair justice sytem there, because China is slowly eroding the original principles of one country, two systems.

Safe to say a British government / banking system just could not legally operate in harmony with such a legal and regulatory system, given our legal and constituential frameworks.

However if you have read anything that provides the detail for such a proposal and how the opportunities would outweigh the risks I would very much like to see it.

Historically Canada and USA are more our friends than the EU

Bollocks. I don't get Leave voters obsession with English speaking countries. Other than that some Brits weird xenophobic fear of countries with a different language is deep, paranoid and pervasive.

Culturally we have more in common with Europe, we have an ancient shared history.

China will extract a very high price for further access to its markets.

The US has made it very clear deals with the EU and the Pacific are their priority.

Plus there is a long and rather tedious separate thread on the reality behind the spin on the EU military HQ. There is no agreed plan for an EU army, just a lot of different hot air from EU members, none of which would gain agreement from even the remaining 27. The military plan was agreed by the UK and comprises some common sense and cost effective measures on co ordination and procurement. Since security is one of the few areas in which we have a clear strong hand in negotiations it is very likely the UK will continue to take part in the military plan since it is beneficial and effectively compliments NATO.

wwrondo,

You are intellectually smart enough to deal with proper policy documents so here we go:

eeas.europa.eu/top_stories/pdf/eugs_review_web.pdf

There is nothing sinister in the draft, but clear limits are not drawn either.

There is a section that says Athena funded organisation will act independently of NATO if necessary.

Of course there is no 'agreed plan'. There is a proposal that keeps coming back. I cannot guarantee it will become reality but neither can you guarantee that it will not stray anything further from say a 10 people team in a small room to just 'coordinate existing arrangements'.

I might add that though it is a little overblown the Chinese people have with some justification (Opium Wars, Hong Kong, Sacking of the Summer Palace, national humiliation) been led to believe that Great Britain was not a "good thing". The difficulty of the visa requirements for the UK specifically vary, like those of no other country, depending on what percieved slight we have delivered. It was one thing to have been able to relay coverage of all the kowtowing to Xi during the state visit. I do not see it even being possible politically for the government to agree a financial passport at the expense of Hong Kong, even if it were practical.

Topsy I am not getting mired in discussion of your conspiracy theories again. I see nothing in that document that undermines why I voted to remain. Maybe it is because I see it from the point of view of the world looking in rather than from the UK out but all the global issues it highlights and the role the EU plays and can play in achieving a fairer world was one of my prime reasons for voting remain. I am a pragmatist and concepts like sovereignty have little meaning in a connected world, certainly not worth damaging the UK economy and bequeathing a divided and diminished UK to the young adults just making their way in the world. The future of my children and not betraying their aspirations as young Europeans was another of my prime reasons for voting. I suspect you can spout all this speculation with ease because it will not directly affect you, as it is affecting my family already. There was enough that set us apart to ensure that there was never going to be a superstate, in any case the US and China are examples of how even where there is a notional superstate the reality is that it doesn't work and regional difference make true centralised government very difficult, practically paralysed in the US, now resorting to hardline brutality in China.

Anyway I have to pack and will be beyond wifi from tonight but no doubt repeating that endless conversation about why the UK is being so idiotic. I have had it twice with overseas visitors this week, sigh.......

Wwrondo

You are over reacting but as you said you / familt are affected I can see why.

You are looking for clear transgression and I am looking for clear limits. Neither present in the document.

As I said, there is nothing sinister in the document and yet you managed to relate that to conspriracy.

Have a good trip.

Topsy I was addressing your endless posts on how Europe is on a trajectory to become a superstate, not just the post on that document.

I see.

That is on a different thread and I thought we have moved on from that?

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/22/switzerland-votes-for-compromise-to-preserve-relations-with-eu Looks as though the Swiss did blink first, although it's only at the debate in Parliament stage so far.

Robert Peston has written a very good article about the customs union and the mere existence of Liam Fox and the International Development Department on his Facebook today.

facebook.com/pestonitv/posts/1697230203935051

Well worth a read.

Swiss - It is actually unclear.

If it is fake preferences, i.e. advertise jobs in a Swiss job centres in French/German/Italian/Romansh for 3 days before they go online, then clearly it will not have the intended effect and in that case, the Swiss blinked. Such action is probably unconstitutional and we shall see.

If it involves real discriminations against EU nationals that would be crossing an EU red line. If EU accepts that, then EU blinks.

Further, the EU (seems to be behaving a little bit like the EIC nowadays) demands a raft of other conditions (such as acceptance of EU court jurisdiction) as part of the 'deal'. If the Swiss accepts that, the Swiss has not just blinked, but capitulated.

We will have to wait and see.

"No. The very reason there are here is to make money, not to be part of EU or part of anything.W

Yes the money they make by having full access to the EU single market is why they are here.

If we don't have access they'll leave they have said that.

Tariffs will have far more of an impact on Nissan and Toyota than they will on BMW, Mercedes and VW.

I have changed my mind slightly since we last have the conversation about the car industry after researching into reputable reports on the car industry.

The trend is that the developed world makes less and less cars overtime. Germany just about able to hold up and the UK has been on the down trend. Many of German cars are now made via joint venture in China (though not yet exported).

UK 1.8m units (2003) 1.68m (2015) (this is into a backdrop of a much larger automotive market world wide)
DEU 5.5m (2003) 6.03m (2015)

US was at the top spot with 12m unit in 2003 and China is the top producer in 2015 with 21m unit.

MG (a rather weak and unique case) has shipped their production back to China just a few days ago.

Unless we 'upgrade' our production capabilities massively, the car factories for mass market cars over time will not be here whether we are in the EU or out of the EU. The EU MFN WTO tariff on cars is just 10% and the EE parts of the EU are catching up fast.

Yet we exported more cars from the UK than ever before last year.

Just the headlines from this article about our very important car industry.

UK car manufacturing reaches 10-year high, growing 3.9% to 1,587,677 vehicles.
More cars exported than ever before, up 2.7% on previous year at 1,227,881.
Domestic production surges 8.1% to 359,796 to meet increasing demand for British-built cars.
EU demand grows 11.3%, with 57.5% of exports destined for the continent.
US overtakes China as UK’s largest export destination, with demand up by a quarter.

www.smmt.co.uk/2016/01/best-year-in-a-decade-for-british-car-manufacturing-as-exports-reach-record-high/

The car industry wouldn't be moving if we were in the EU, you've only changed your mind so you can try to discount the importance of it to the UK.

The tariff only being 10% is really important when you consider the brands manufactured here! Price is not the only determinant of demand for cars, but it is a very important one for the cars mass manufactured here.

It was a nice headline and it is literally true but if you dig, the numbers are weak. In 2005 UK produced 1.8 million, so 1.68m in 2015 is a 10 years high, but not a 11 years high.

French production has now halved compared to 2005.

For mass market cars, the German aren't doing that well either. If they were sitting comfortable than there was no need to cheat (the emission scandal).

If you look at manufacturing in EE and the newly industrialised counties, there numbers are up by meaningful amount.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_motor_vehicle_production

You don't think the world recovery from the global banking crash has anything to do with those figures? Also the fact that in that time Rover has gone out of business and stopped producing cars probably has something to do with it.

Don't let it stop your narrative that the car industry isn't important, confirm your bias all the way, doesn't make you correct.

"confirm your bias all the way"

It doesn't. But it confirms another thing. I really have real work to do.

Funny that.

topsy if you want to argue about Brexit impacta on the car industry, you need to go and do some proper reading. This superficial stuff about German car manufacturers is just irritating.

The trend is that the developed world makes less and less cars over time

This is very misleading. What time frame are you referring to? Are you forgetting the small matter of the financial crisis and its impact on vehicle sales in major western markets? What do you mean by the "developed world" - are you counting US cars made over the border in Mexico, for example?

One of the big changes in the car industry in the last couple of decades is that production of mass market vehicles now mostly takes place within or close to the market in which the car is sold. A decade or two ago, (within my working career as an economist/ analyst covering this market among others) many of the Japanese vehicles sold in America and Europe were made in Japan. Note that "within or close to" includes vehicles made inside trading blocs - Fords assembled in Mexico for the US market, Toyotas made in the UK for export to the EU, etc.

Cars are mostly made close to where they are sold. It's no surprise that China is now the world's largest car manufacturer, because it's also the world's largest car market in terms of sales - and it makes little sense to ship mass market cars halfway around the world. You can be extremely confident that unless the UK somehow develops a world-beating luxury vehicle manufacturing industry that UK-built cars are never going to be sold in China in any numbers.

For the UK car industry to thrive (and it's not just the foreign-owned car companies that matter: there are lots of UK companies selling materials and components to the car industry), it needs access to the EU market.

This is worth reading, on the subject of NTBs and the gravity model, and is particularly relevant to this thread.

medium.com/@Nightingale_P/ice-cream-selling-in-egg-land-10c4419f89d8#.c67cbye5w

I should summarise that article (for the benefit of those who won't bother to read it):

"Double the distance, halve the trade."

...Unless, of course, you're a UKIP MP who believes that the tides are caused by the sun and not the moon...

Mistigri What do you call any numbers when referring to UK cars in China?