Rumour has it, some remainers are a little glum.....

[Carolinesbeanies]

So in the spirit of sharing our deluded brexiteer cheerfulness, heres a round up of some of this weeks good news.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-5040279/UK-exports-booming-outside-Europe.html

http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/london-news/big-boost-world-bank-ranks-uk-seventh-in-its-doing-business-report/18554.article

https://global.handelsblatt.com/politics/world-trade-makes-a-comeback-845798/amp

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-volkswagen/vw-explores-uk-banking-licence-ahead-of-brexit-idUKKBN1D22KR

The government have 'found' £60billion to put is a slush fund for brexit.

https://amp.ft.com/content/f3271ac7-7439-319f-ba90-9252f59aafee

And in the week that saw the interest rate rise, the Bank of England said gloomily "as migration tightens, we will see wage growth". Note the 'we will'.

Excellent. All this whilst the media obsess over impotent politicians as Britain works.

Hard to know what happened. They say it was signed off now, so it was the DUP.

What a shambles.

professionally active in Fixed Income markets in the City for 30 years

Olivia I fear "some nutter has hijacked your account".

<a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160324191557/hopisen.com:80/2014/how-to-win-an-argument-on-twitter/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20160324191557/hopisen.com:80/2014/how-to-win-an-argument-on-twitter/

Haulding my wheesht till the grown ups get things sorted - would that Nippy, Carwyn and Sadiq had done similar.

Haulding my wheesht till the grown ups get things sorted

Which grown ups would these be? May, Davis, Fox, Johnson, IDS, Rees-Mogg, Redwood? Most of them seem like spoilt brats, being charitable.

You left out Gove. My particular favourite. not really

The fact is that all of the prominent campaigners of both Remain & Leave made it explicitly clear that a vote to leave the eu was a vote to leave the single market.

Let's face it, campaigners said a lot of things. We're constantly being told that the NHS/bus thing wasn't a lie and that no-one voted to leave on the basis of it, despite people being recorded* saying they did exactly that. Why then should we take anything else that was said as being 'fact'? Another case of Leavers picking 'facts' to suit their arguments...
*Straight from the horse's mouth...

It doesn't really matter what campaigners said, because for the most part they are not involved in implementing Brexit, and because regardless of how individual politicians may have interpreted the question, the language on the ballot paper was in fact quite clear.

The vote was to decide whether to leave or remain. No one was asked to vote on membership of the single market or the customs union, and it would be perfectly possible to implement the result of the referendum while remaining inside the single market. Norway is not an EU member.

Happy Days more inching forward another step towards freedom today I wish I could say Well done but at least it's progress. Keep in debating whether the Referendum was binding and the powers in charge will keep on ignoring you it's getting a bit silly now don't you think?

Yeah, you've got your best guys on it, they're all over it and soon you'll be free from something you've agreed to adhere to.

Oh.

The striking thing about Johnson, Rees mogg and redwood is that subliminally (through their dress, manner, language, accent etc) they all meld themselves as 'throw-backs' to a bygone age of 'empire'.

This IMHO is an important aspect of the story of brexit as the myth of 'Britain standing alone'.

I wonder what it is about our current economic climate that so many people feel a nostalgic need to doff caps to their politicians again.

If David Davies failed so spectacularly in a company, he would be fired. I'm a Remainer and not a TM fan but it shouldn't have taken the big boss weighing in to get something a bit like progress.

My money was on the EU blustering out in a huff while claiming they would be unable to sell the deal to the r27. DD engineering a DUP strop followed by everyone else in UK throwing their toys out the pram and taking away a week's worth of wiggle room from EU was pure genius imho.

I think it worked out rather well too howabout!

It brought everyone out of the woodwork & showed everyone in their true colours for once.

Do you think it was on purpose? I cant work out whether it was that machiavellian, or whether it was genuinely that DD could not pull together all the competing agendas from the UK and it took the authority of the PM to do it. Glad they found enough common ground to move on to phase 2. In my own extensive experience of dealing with Brussels bureaucrats, it's the normal pattern - delay, delay, stall, stall, obfuscate, and then suddenly a flurry of activity and common sense prevails a pragmatic solution emerges and you're left thinking "why the hell couldn't we manage that in a couple of hours six months ago??!!!" It's a very particular kind od culture, and not in the slightest bit the way the equivalent UK institutions work, ime.

@ommmward

How much of this do you think could be:

• Lack of agreed vision of what Brexit is at Cabinet level
• Mutually exclusive "red lines" - eg no NI border but leaving the SM/CU
• Ineffectual head of DEXEU
• Lack of understanding of how intl trade works leading to a position that "no deal is better than a bad deal"
• A sequencing of discussions which was decided by the EU because the govt triggered A50 and lost leverage
• A lack of understanding by the govt of the A50 process - ie they are still saying we are moving to a stage of negotiating a deal ... which can only happen after we have left

• Yes
• Yes
• Don't know but perfectly possible (as in, the spin that the papers and the politicians put on things is so complicated that it's hard to differentiate between incompetence and Machiavellian cunning
• Very possible at ministerial level, but I'd be surprised and disappointed if the civil servants don't by now have a good idea what they are doing.
• yes (although Isn't that point about triggering A50 just how it had to be? Like, none of the exiting process could start till A50 was triggered, so the logistical consequences in terms of timetabling weren't in UK control anyway?)
• Nah, i think there will be plenty of preliminary behind closed doors discussion going on, it's just a question of whether it's politically expedient to admit to it or not.

I don't think the government is doing a particularly splendid job no, but I'm absolutely positive I'm being manipulated into that interpretation, whether it's objectively true or not. Because anger, fear, anxiety, outrage sells newspapers and makes people switch on the TV or radio news. Also, even if things aren't going quite as dreadfully as the media portrays, it can be in the interests of the government to let the dreadful prognostications continue unchallenged. Not noticing much complaint about the size of the divorce bill. "oh thank goodness. I'm sure i read somewhere it would be £50bn or even £100bn. £40bn ish isn't that bad, comparatively". That sort of thing.

Also, I'd much rather this boring and grey but fundamentally capitalist crowd are leading us through it. We'd get a very different set of priorities in play in the negotiations if we had a socialist administration, and that wouldn't suit me, personally, to be landed as a country with an international profile in five years time that is based on socialism. We've been basically capitalist just about my whole life; that's the system i know and recognise as culturally mine (in varying flavours of red and blue, once with a tinge of orange)

@ommmward

- Don't know but perfectly possible (as in, the spin that the papers and the politicians put on things is so complicated that it's hard to differentiate between incompetence and Machiavellian cunning

Have you seen him provides updates to the Parliamentary Brexit committee? he does not strike me as being in control. A good salesman yes. Technocrat, no?

- Very possible at ministerial level, but I'd be surprised and disappointed if the civil servants don't by now have a good idea what they are doing.

I agree; civil servants will know.

But I suppose it is up to the Ministers to listen and learn. If they knew about how things were done, I would find it hard to make pronouncements that are simply not possible

So in my view: leadership failure.

- yes (although Isn't that point about triggering A50 just how it had to be? Like, none of the exiting process could start till A50 was triggered, so the logistical consequences in terms of timetabling weren't in UK control anyway?)

To some extent.

However, I saw no attempt to negotiate with the EU prior to launch. There did not seem to be organisation around how the process would work or indeed what the priorities were.

- Nah, i think there will be plenty of preliminary behind closed doors discussion going on, it's just a question of whether it's politically expedient to admit to it or not.

I don't agree. A few reasons:

1. there MUST be a transition period after we leave, else we are - looking purely at trade here - in WTO territory and more buggered than if we have an FTA (which is clearly makes us worse off than now). As such this is going to take a lot of resource

2. there are so many aspects of the relationship - goods trade, aviation, services trade, nuclear, agriculture, fisheries, medicines, security coop, taxation, defense - that the only thing which is remotely feasible is a Heads of Terms (typically the first phase before getting into drafting and negotiation of documentation). I'm not even convinced given the need to negotiate a transition period that enough time and resource is available for this to happen,

In a way, I'm pretty meh about leadership failure. As in, I'm not at all convinced Labour in its current state would manage it brilliantly either, and at least (as i said) this lot are basically capitalist rather than basically socialist. There's nothing direct i can do about it, so what's the point worrying? I could have been anxious for weeks about whether they'd make sufficient progress, and then this last week would have just been gut wrenching, with the Irish Question almost scuppering it, and then a cobble is found, which shows everyone basically wants to find a,solution, and the difficult questions are kicked down the road far enough that solutions will probably emerge to them when they arise again We don't get to control events, but we totally get to choose whether to worry or not.

@ommmward

Leadership failures are everywhere. I agree. At this point in time when we need it most. Leadership would have avoided this shit we are in - cf Macron v LePen.

There is something you can do about it.

Object. Fight. Decry falsehoods. Make your voice heard.

That's democracy.

You can of course choose to do nothing. That's democracy.

Worrying, same thing.