Westminsterenders: The Ersatz ImitationThread

[OlennasWimple]

I am no RedToothBrush, so I'm not going to try to emulate her exception OP style.

Here, though, in the interests of carrying on our conversations about WTF is going on with Brexit and the weird political world we find ourselves in right now, is a sort of continuation thread

(Hurry back Red, we need you!)

at "elasticity" = at least ! < ponders autocorrect logic >

Not sure that Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg were dictating the terms of World Trade in 1972

The UK was a founding member of the GAAT in 1948. Indeed the EU succeeded membership to most International Organisations via the underlying membership of Nation States esp UK. No reason to suggest the reverse will not apply.

No trade deal with EU looks implausible.

Doubt uncontrolled low wage immigration will continue especially given previous MAC report I linked earlier - the point re FoM with reduced protections was the issue with DC's renegotiation.

GDP per head and income inequality both matter more than headline GDP atm.

The political consensus throughout the 1960s and the early 1970s

• whether you agree or not with those "experts" -

was that the Uk had missed the boat when it didn't oarticipate with the original 6 countries in forming the then EEC

Trade with nearest neighbours is usually the most important trade and the UK had too little influence in how the rules for European trade were being formed.

That's why the UK joined
Not because if feeling "European" but because the Uk trade experts, economists and most politicians thought the UK was missing out.

Even if you disagree with the decision to join...

Leaving is totally different to never having joined

Brexit means Year Zero - the UK in modern times has never been without any trade deals or lacking vital agency & organizational memberships

The UK had all those trade connections & memberships before joining the EEC
Now it only has these as part of the EU and will lose them on Brexit

The UK had an egg, chose to be part of an omelette, now wants back its egg

It will take years to get back to that pre-EU state of connectiveness in trade, agencies, organizational memberships

Of course the Uk will - eventually - negotiate a trade deal after Brexit
BUT
It won't remotely resemble the frictionless trade and movement of goods & services we have now.
Trade will be hammered
and it will take YEARS to renegotiate all the trade deals with the rest of the world

What Canada gets from CETA is nothing like what the UK needs from its nearest neighbours.
What Turkey has is nothing like the UK needs
Even the US with its 50 or so MRAs with the EU does not have the frictionless trade that the UK needs

If you think JC can really change things .....

In the 1960s, Labour could have a 98% highest tax rate on investment income
Even MrsT had income tax starting at over 30% and top rate 70% (she cut that back over the years)

BUT since the late 1980s, the power of democratic socialism to help the poorest has been massively reduced:

• The collapse of the USSR has removed constraints on the uberwealthy class, who need not fear an angry populace turning to communism

• Wealth moves seamlessly across borders, around much of the world.
  The mobile upper middle class can and will move countries if say JC tries to tax them more
  The wealthy will move their assets out
  Business will move too

Most Brexiters still seem to expect is that Merkel & Macron will ride to the rescue ... because of cars, EU trade surplus with the UK

They think that nasty Barnier and Brussels are somehow riding roughshod over all those lovely countries who want to let the UK have its cake and eat it

BUT
Barnier works within strict instructions agreed by the 27 govts

Barnier can't just give in to cake wrt trade, without every govt agreeing - any of them can and will veto a trade deal they don't like
Only the non-trade A50 matters - expats, NI, exit bill - can be approved by qualified majority voting
And the EU Parliament and the RoI have threatened to veto any trade deal if they don't like the non-trade deal.

German industry have stated repeatedly that although they will suffer some damage from a no deal Brexit, they accept this in order to prioritise maintaining the Single Market rules.
Ditto other key trading partners in the EU

So
No cake
Just the Uk eceonomy suffering for several years until trade gets back to the current state

In the meantime, to keep UK PLC afloat:
keeping all the cheap EE workers and importing even cheaper ones to replace those who leave
lower taxes on business and the better off
tighter limits on public spending

I am slightly worried that surfer won't start a new Arms thread. So I have started a thread asking her to do it.

A different perspective on why the UK joined the EU (written by an LSE History professor)

blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2015/11/26/why-britain-really-joined-the-eec-and-why-it-had-nothing-to-do-with-helping-our-economy/

"Most Brexiters" and "they think" don't really work, semantically.

I realise it's probably not politically correct, but I really can't find any part of me that gives a shit if they [extreme Leavers] are satisfied or not.

No, but they will continue to make a nuisance of themselves, to the detriment of everyone else.

No trade deal with EU looks implausible.
I agree, but as with Norway and Switzerland, it will come at a price, without our having any say in the rules.

In 2016 the UK exported £241 bn in goods and services to the EU. This is about 12% of UK GDP. EU imports were £312 bn. Non-EU exports were £307 bn and imports were £273 bn.

The UK had an overall trade deficit of £71 billion with the EU in 2016. A surplus of £24 billion on trade in services was outweighed by a deficit of £96 billion on trade in goods. The "free market" in services is far from complete.

There seems to be plenty of scope for win / win or substitution.

file:///home/chronos/u-27673cca55db219e254522f8ae45f55a27c36d75/Downloads/CBP-7851.pdf

Sorry link is:
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf

Can someone take up the lease on the Brexit Arms? We must be in the hang over phase by now.

lurking 😂

Sorry to hear about mrs lh, but glad she's built from sterner stuff.
Fwiw, I look very Celtic when I don't dye my hair and cover my freckles, and I've had a few choice comments since this has kicked off. Gets worse as I have an Asian surname if you say it wrong.
Have lots of friends of differing backgrounds or name origins experiencing similar. Saw an old lady spit at a black couple the other week too. I haven't witnessed such open crap this bad since the mid 80s.
Regression at its best.

The EU has started proceedings against Poland over reforms that are threatening the independence of the judiciary

www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-politics-eu-idUSKBN1AE0CD?il=0

This seems to me to be at the heart of what we think the EU stands for: a behemoth that is interfering in the internal affairs of a member state or a force that seeks to protect democratic values across Europe (I think it is the latter...)

And yet this is nowhere to be found on the BBC website (even though they managed to find space for a ban on text messages for Honolulu pedestrians...)

The Observer today has a story on customs chaos. www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/29/uk-border-customs-chaos-hit-hard-brexit

Oxera intro and full report here www.oxera.com/Latest-Thinking/Publications/Reports/2017/Brexit-ports.aspx

Fox denies that the cabinet want a transitional deal

Fox told the Sunday Times: “If there have been discussions on that I have not been party to them. I have not been involved in any discussions on that.”

So, was the Chancellor attempting a coup while TM is away for three weeks? Or is Fox simply so out of the loop, no one bothered to tell him about the decision?

lala what the hell is going on in the government?

I was relatively relieved when Hammond said a transitional deal would be needed. Total bloody chaos.

When I'm not sure we actually have a Government, just a bunch of Tories squabbling.

Fox told the Sunday Times: “If there have been discussions on that I have not been party to them. I have not been involved in any discussions on that.”

So:

either the reporting about a transitional deal is false;

OR

Liam Fox has just told the world where he stands in the mix.

As a rule, it's probably not a good idea to open your mouth if one interpretation of what you say is a suggestion that you are somehow diminished as a political force. Especially to an audience that have already decided they wouldn't tell you what day of the week it was out of principle.

was the Chancellor attempting a coup while TM is away for three weeks? Or is Fox simply so out of the loop, no one bothered to tell him about the decision?

Bit of both, for my money.

Gotta love this government. Leakier than a Thames Water pipe.

Don't you mean the natural party of government?

As I read elsewhere, "If the Chuckle Brothers did Brexit ..."

Starting up think that I'll need to plant plenty of winter veg/over winterers (like onions, cabbage) and get ahead of myself with salads, peas and broad beans in my friend's the greenhouse next year, so that I still have a affordable supply of vegetables post A50 in 2109