Westministenders: Brexit Britain = Gridlock Britain ?

[BigChocFrenzy]

We keep getting told the Uk can get a deal like Canada, Turkey or other non-EU countries have, without FOM.
Those deals do not provide the same privileges as EU members:
They have quotas, restrictions and must obey EU regulations

e.g. After CETA, Ron Davidson, head of international trade for the Canadian Meat Council stated:
"We do not have what we would call commercially viable access to the European market".

The deal with Turkey abolished tariffs, but did not give free acess. This is what that means:

www.ft.com/content/b4458652-f42d-11e6-8758-6876151821a6

"On a recent Saturday at the Kapikule border crossing, about 30 minutes drive from the Turkish city of Edirne, a line of trucks 4km long stretched along the highway, inching along glacially towards the Bulgarian checkpoints.
"Today is a good day", said Ibrahim Kurtukcu, a 42-year trucker who had been waiting 14 hours.
"Last week the line was 7km long".
The record is 17km. It can take up to 30 hours to get through to the other side."

Of course, UK ports (and French ports) do not have the capacity, facilities, storage space or trained staff to handle customs processing of the vast amount of British exports & imports.

Building this additional capacity - where ? - would take several years and there are no signs that even the planning stage has started.

Hope you had a good rest RTB!

Red Welcome back. You are fine. Big things are happening this week, last week was the calm before the storm.

Red This is my favourite - if May showed even a smidgeon of irony I might trust her more to be playing a clever game instead of suspecting a lack of perspective

Acknowledging a Leave win does not inevitably involve appointing 3 of the biggest twits in the party.

Not disputing that she has to involve Leave, just emphasising the fact that she made a free choice, she was not coerced.

WB Red.

Acknowledging a Leave win does not inevitably involve appointing 3 of the biggest twits in the party.
absolutely. I did quite like the creation of a brexit secretary and the fact it wasn't one of the main idiots but sadly Davis isn't someone who garnered much respect regardless of his preference on the referendum.
Also acknowledging the leave win doesn't mean paying massive lip service to the far right echelons of the party.

I have decided though that when the time comes that I am one of the smartest people left I will use the position of power to abolish voting with the whip and make all MPs swear and oath to Churchill's three point voting structure.

What is the UK going to do, even if a large proportion of the population is convinced it's all the EU's fault? We'll already have flounced off, we can't flounce off again.

Indeed

I think Davis is weak but on I saw this on Twitter yesterday so I may be out of kilter.

Worth‏Verified account @jonworth Mar 11
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Of the Brexiteers @bbclaurak interviewed, only Davis comes across ok. Gove awfully smug, and Johnson either lying or clueless or both.

Not read it all yet but this will be interesting.

Game theory in Brexitland - Frances Coppola

www.coppolacomment.com/2017/03/game-theory-in-brexitland.html

From that article.

"The truth is that May's threat to leave the EU on WTO rules is no more credible than Alexis Tsipras's threat to leave the Euro. Leading the UK over the cliff edge onto a pile of jagged rocks is not delivering the best outcome for the UK. She would pay the price for that folly at the ballot box in 2020, or earlier if she lost the support of her (already restive) back-bench MPs. She has no choice but to try to negotiate some kind of soft landing. So the attempt to stifle Parliament is, once again, wrong. She must be chained to the negotiating table, even if it takes a Parliamentary veto to do it.

But the EU can walk away. After all, if it does nothing, the UK leaves on WTO rules that are a lot more damaging for the UK than they are for the EU. So the EU holds the upper hand. And the EU likes to play brinkmanship, especially when invited to do so by a foolhardy government. So my guess is that there will be a transitional deal. It will be hashed out in a brutal all-nighter just before the Article 50 notice expires. And in that meeting, May will agree to every single one of the EU's terms - because although they will fall a long way short of the benefits the UK currently enjoys, they will be better than the alternative.

The game will play out for the UK just as it did for Greece and Cyprus. And if any other governments are thinking of playing chicken with the EU - be warned. You will end up as roadkill."

Kaija - wrt the 'Russia's strategy' report: how long I wonder before the UK goes cap in hand to Moscow trying to sell jam...

So my guess is that there will be a transitional deal. It will be hashed out in a brutal all-nighter just before the Article 50 notice expires. And in that meeting, May will agree to every single one of the EU's terms

This is pretty much my view, although I think there is an incentive for the EU to offer a transitional deal that is not brutal (economically - it will of course be brutally humiliating to the govt and the hard brexiters).

And this article doesn't even touch on NTBs ...

Misti and Edith yes, I found that article very interesting, but as you say, it only skims the surface. Nothing on non-trade barriers, little on the issue of just in time production in car manufacturing, other issues like open skies policies and landing rights (for low cost carriers), Northern Ireland, etc. The eureferemdum blog is very good on the details of these.

Welcome back Red!

On the subject of preparing for Brexit, there's a report by the Institute for Government (IfG) and UK in a Changing Europe, reported in the Grauniad, on what the Civil Service needs
www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/13/many-more-civil-servants-needed-to-cope-with-brexit-workload

I reckon this bit needs publicising and emphasising:
"...In order to free up capacity for future stages of Brexit, departments need a steer from the government as to what policies can be delayed or dropped.

"In other areas, the amount of work is such that reprioritisation alone will not work – it appears inevitable that the government will have to revise the spending plans of departments such as Defra and the Home Office.”

Well
The day may well be finally here
Thank you very much for all the discussion and laughs since June 24th

Good luck everyone x

Getting serious rage this morning.

'Will MPs support the Lords' amendments or will they support the government in triggering article 50?'

They're not either/or options. They can support the amendments and support TM triggering article 50 FFS.

math We do not need to sell jam to Russia. I am pretty sure they would be more than happy to build and finance a few nuclear power plants here like in Hungary

EU clears Russian nuclear reactor project in Hungary
in.mobile.reuters.com/article/idINL5N1GJ2VD

They're not either/or options.

I'm afraid that most people, no thanks to the media, really are thinking everything to do with Brexit is that simple.

EU is Bad.
Out is Out.
Success is Success.
You're Either With Us Or Against Us.

Perhaps worst of all, this bizarre idea that triggering Article 50 (tomorrow ?) is The Happy Ending to the movie, the Heroes ride off into the Sunlit Uplands on a unicorn, it's all over bar the knighthood. Everything that happens after tomorrow is boring.

"In other areas, the amount of work is such that reprioritisation alone will not work – it appears inevitable that the government will have to revise the spending plans of departments such as Defra and the Home Office.”

Hardly "news" though. That's exactly what was pointed out up to June 23rd.

The one - slight - power Remainers have is to point at at every twist and turn, whenever news like the above is announced with the "who'd have thunk it mood music" that it was all highlighted, predicted, pointed out, warned, discussed, known about well before the referendum.

The one excuse we can show up for the lie every time the Brexiteers try to act surprised at what a monumental task everything is "things are much harder than was imagined before we began the Leave process". It'll be a drip, drip, drip on their judgement, and might alliow for a creation of a narrative dilemma ...

#1 I voted Brexit because - despite mountains of evidence that the process would be incredibly debilitating and uncertain - I didn't believe it

PUBLIC: Your judgement is fucked. Out !

#2 I voted Brexit even though I knew full well the process would be incredibly debilitating and uncertain

PUBLIC: You're a cock. Out !

I know elements
It just frustrates me the way the language is being used. Its seem provocative on purpose.

There's an argument to be made that only once A50 is triggered will real world considerations start to play a serious role in the debate. Even if the UK government doesn't want a blow-by-blow account of negotiations getting out, the EU will leak like a leaky colander .

Minds may get concentrated. Some evidence of that happening this weekend. We'll see.

(welcome back Red btw!)

Well The day may well be finally here Thank you very much for all the discussion and laughs since June 24th Good luck everyone x

Oh come on! Where is your inner Churchill? This is not the end, this is the end of the beginning.

Churchill, like people like Blair, was despised by many for previous actions, but in this case it was 'cometh the hour, cometh the man.'

The idea that we can have two years of secret negotiations is patently ludicrous. I agree that the EU will leak from the get-go - because why shouldn't they? Theresa May's scary eyes have no traction across the Channel. Nor will her threat to jail journalists who publish any of the leaks - we shall just have to brush up our French/German/Italian/Latvian and read the daily dispatches from the European press.

Hopefully as the full scale of how disastrous these negotiations are going to be becomes clear, some MPs people will come to their senses.

Glad to see you back, RTB.