Westminstenders: And so it begins

[RedToothBrush]

Promises made that can not be kept.

We have already fallen at the first stumbling block: the desire for parallel talks on exit and future relationship that May wanted has been rejected. Not that this is a surprise seeing as we were told this.

This isn't two years of negotiations for a good deal. Forget any suggestions that it is. It's two years of damage limitation and domestic pr.

For both the UK and EU.

I do believe that May's attitude - which seemed to be more friendly in her speech and letter yesterday - has burnt all our bridges.

This talk of the world needing the EU's 'liberal democracy' isn't aimed at the EU though. Her use of the words that produced uproar in the HoC yesterday was deliberate. Why use it? It was always going to produce a reaction.

When May says she will have a consensus at home to achieve this goal one of two things must happen: to prove just how much we need the EU to make a political reversal possible at the expense of her head or to vilify the EU to a point that Remainers suddenly change their mind.

To get a good deal for the UK she can not satisfy her hard line Brexiteers. It is impossible purely because to do otherwise is like breaking the laws of physics. Trade is done mostly with who you are closest too. This is the inescapable truth. We are leaving the EU but not Europe as keeps being pointed out.

If we want to trade we have to accept EU regulations. If we do not, we do not trade. Rules we can now no longer influence by must obey.

We can not reduce immigration. We have had control of non-Eu immigration and that is not going down due to skills shortages. To combat this schools are getting less money.

In terms of sovereignty and British parliament we just gave that away. The 'Great' Repeal Act is a power grab by the executive. It seems to give the powers of the monarch to Mrs May and take them away from parliamentary scrutiny. At the same time we are forced to become beholden to Trump's America. A man who screws people for a living and has not a shred of honour.

Using security as our bargaining chip misses the obvious. If we do not cooperate we endanger Brits abroad and ourselves domestically. Are we really prepared to stop?

The opportunities of Brexit Britain are bleak. This will be normalised.

Good luck folks. We are gonna need it.

Well last time round 1989-90, in the south east it was a 30% drop. Loads were stuck in negative equity. If interest rates start going up with inflation, there will be even more homelessness; that's what happened last time. lala. I think I can see a lot of rental stock being offloaded, here in the south.

Brexit could cause a house market crash on its own (not least in neighbourhoods such as mine which are very dependent on City wages and a large number of EU nationals who also work in finance and are much better placed to pick up jobs in Europe if/when the banks start to move). The recent surge in spending and credit could also bring it down though and, like you said, it's unlikely to benefit those who are struggling to get on/move up the ladder. Rents are going down too though so there may be some BTL distress sales.

I think that a lot of people who had properties as an investment are selling.
M parents certainly have. Why have some investment in a country that you know is going down under??
I suspect that will apply to other areas too, not just housing btw.

You're right , woman, lots of rentals being cashed in. It's really difficult to sell flats at the moment because there are too many on the market and few buyers. The house market in London is the perfect illustration of what happens when the market experiences uncertainty: people now won't touch flats that, a year ago, would have looked like bargains...

I should have said "when a market experiences uncertainty".

Housing in London won't drop though. Brits might end up homeless, but I would expect the market to be held up from overseas investment and opportunism from those already financially secure.

I wouldn't have thought it would help the young. Quite the opposite. It would help the old who think that bricks and mortar still are a long term investment which is better than betting on shares in British companies crippled by Brexit or foreign companies based here, who no longer see the UK as a world leader.

I just see it as a way of making the existing problem worse rather than rebalancing the issues.

I'd agree houses and flats in London are moving slower, but only marginally, taking a month to get rid of a flat that last year would have gone in the first day etc

Overseas buyers wanted to buy/invest in London while it was booming. Yes, there will still be very wealthy overseas buyers wanting to salt away a few million on a charmless riverside duplex but the East Asians etc who were hoping to make a buck are a disappearing breed. They know that prices aren't going up any time soon and that foreign nationals may not be that welcome. Their kids might struggle to get a uni place under current regulations - there's nothing in it for them.

Prices might not go up soon. But prices are getting cheaper at the same time. Demand for houses that people can't afford to buy themselves isn't going away any time soon either.

www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-04/hammond-says-some-on-british-side-don-t-even-want-a-brexit-deal
Hammond Says Some on British Side Don’t Even Want a Brexit Deal

“There are definitely some people on both sides who do not want a deal, they do not want to see Britain continuing to collaborate in what the prime minister described in a letter as a deep and special partnership with the European Union,” Hammond said in an interview Tuesday in New Delhi. “I can tell you with a high degree of confidence that we will come up against tensions in this process.”

The chancellor, who traveled with Bank of England Governor Mark Carney to promote British business, has sought to position himself as a voice of compromise in Prime Minister Theresa May’s government. Brexit supporters who demand a radical break with the EU have unnerved those who worry about the economic fallout of negotiations ending without a deal.

What did I say?

Law and Policy‏*@Law*andpolicy

Brexit negotiations so far

UK: negotiations pre-A50?

EU: no

UK: cherry-pick four freedoms?

EU: no

UK trade talks in parallel?

EU: no

Thing is with that, is that's what the EU said all along, and the brexiter groups have all dismissed it, basically saying we'll get what we want.

:(

Yup!

some people on both sides who do not want a deal
What do you think will happen?

On 'housing' or money laundering:
www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/04/the-property-billboards-that-reveal-the-truth-about-britains-luxury-housing-market

Regardless of how abysmally a govt performs, when the Official Opposition Leader has buggered off to lala land, the voters stick with the Devil they have...

4 May Council Elections: Labour can expect humiliation

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/84816/labour-set-lose-125-council-seats-next-month-and

Forecast
Tory: gain 100
Liberal: Gain 100
UKIP: lose up to 100
Labour: lose up to 125 seats

and

Labour likely to lose control of Lancashire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire County Councils

and

"cataclysmic" result expected in Scotland,
where Labour support has crashed from 29% in 2012 (the last time these seats were fought) to just 14% today.

Labour expected to lose control of Glasgow to the SNP and crash from 1st to 3rd place in Edinburgh.

"Conservatives would be on course for a majority of more than 100 seats if Theresa May called a snap election this year."

The way the negotiations and Brexit are looking now, she'd be wise to grab those seats in case Labour manage to get sane quickly.

There will be no deal.

The way the negotiations and Brexit are looking now, she'd be wise to grab those seats in case Labour manage to get sane quickly
Crappy council elections could help with this. Time's not on her side.
No deal, wtf.

In North Oxfordshire (True blue since the year dot) a sitting Tory County Councillor is standing as an Independent against another Tory!

So maybe crossing to another party is too much for them, but splitting the Tory vote is fine!

Politics home doesn't agree with Rallings and Thrasher re Labour losses. There is a big difference - who is usually right? In Oxfordshire, UKIP aren't standing as many candidates as before, so won't be winning many seats.

How odd:
Richard North seems to be expecting a permanent EU-Lite / Associateship for the UK

http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86433

"I see the spin machine seeking to make the transition agreement permanent."

"There are two possible breakaway scenarios from this point.

In one, we see just enough economic damage for a shocked nation to pull back from complete withdrawal, settling for an uneasy, half-in, half-out arrangement, renewed on a periodic basis.

In the other, the EU itself launches another treaty, offering a newly devised form of associate membership, with easy entry terms, set to attract the UK back into the fold. "

"Having looked over the precipice, those in high places have realised that "no deal" is simply not an option,

while completion of an agreement inside two years simply isn't going to happen."

"With so little clarity and even less genuine knowledge, the Government can rely on confused and ignorant journalists missing the point.

They will give the final settlement their approval because they will not understand what has happened."

"For historians, the breakdown will be traced to a year before the referendum when the putative leave campaign set its face against promoting a coherent exit plan.

With no ideas of its own, it was in no position after the unexpected victory to demand any particular outcome, leaving an equally unprepared Government to flounder for nine months, before handing over the initiative to the "colleagues".

It will be EU lite, or hard exit, not the deal where we have our cake and eat it.

Unfortunately this won't satisfy people like the Minister for the 1940s.

www.politico.eu/blogs/playbook-plus/2017/04/ukip-led-party-in-disarray-as-chief-walks-out/
UKIP-led party in disarray as chief walks out
It’s been a downward spiral at the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, after the European Parliament ordered the party repay misspent EU funds

The UKIP-led Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), is in disarray after Yasmine Dehaene, the party’s executive director, walked out of the group.

In her parting email Dehaene wrote that she and a colleague —Willem Toutenhoofd — had worked “pro bono” for three months.

Dehaene went on to blame UKIP for failing to meet promises to pay “outstanding urgent bills from the lawyers, the accountant and the rent,” and said that service providers were no longer willing to supply their services to the party.

I rated the chances of crashing out without a deal at over 50%
However, North may be right about "those in high places" - i.e. Tory corporate donors - not tolerating a disaster

With the total shambles UKIP produce whenever they have control of seats or money, it's depressing that they have ever received more votes than the Monster Raving Loony Party

With the total shambles UKIP produce whenever they have control of seats or money, it's depressing that they have ever received more votes than the Monster Raving Loony Party

But this still doesn't stop the BBC from having a UKIP spokesperson on QT each week.

It's a big ask of the EU to set up some kind of associate membership because the UK got the hump.