Westminstenders: Break Up or Make Up?

[RedToothBrush]

The next week or so appears to be yet another crunch point (not that any of these crunch points have actually resolved anything so far).

The EU is set to outline the plan for Ireland. Which everyone thought had already been outlined and agreed already. And it had been admitted was legally binding.

Except apparently we don't want to do that, and we are now crying about how the EU want to break up Britain (nothing to do with England wanting to leave the EU and Scotland and NI wanting to stay in it of course).

Jeremy Corbyn has now apparently decided that the customs union is a good idea. David Davis and Liam Fox have responded by saying that this would stop us making our own trade deals. Yes this has obviously stopped Turkey, and why aren't we doing as much trade with China etc as Germany anyway? A vote in the HoC looms before Easter. Will Tory rebels support.

Will Jeremy Corbyn bow to pressure over the single market too? The customs union alone does not stop the border issue in Ireland. Nor does it stop ridiculous queues at Dover. I'm not sure Corbyn is one for listening though. He's got a whiff of power and democracy and reality is just a hindrance to utopia.

As for the Great Repeal Bill. Word has it, its not going too clever in the HoL. The conservatives had something of a show of strength with an unusual number turning up for the debate. But few on the backbenches were willing to speak in favour of...

It all feels like we are making no progress at all. We are still bleating on about cherry picked deals as if this is a negotiation. Its not.

National Pro Brexit rally:

So May has ruled out passporting and suggested a vague mutual recognition system instead:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/04/theresa-may-rules-out-city-firms-passporting-after-brexit

Is this not something of a disaster for our morally unattractive but extremely lucrative financial services sector?

It has been surprising how meek the City has been about Brexit. Yes, there have been a few high-profile relocations and some low-level grumbling but, generally, the bankers have kept their heads down. Were they in denial about passporting?

I think they are just getting on with preparing to transfer all "passport requiring" business There's a hell of a lot of work for them to do and not much time to do it in.

Jam tomorrow A "still-to-invented" imaginary alternate system just own't cut it for hard-headed business leaders.

But that's it, I know loads of people who work in the City in all sorts of roles and, as far as I can tell, none of them are preparing to ship out (a fair few are EU nationals who seem to be staying put too). They're still talking about London schools and work they want to have done on their homes and blah. I can't understand the lack of concern/anger .

I have a feeling that big business don't want to get involved with the political shit storm and are just quietly making plans to move. One day the government will wake up and realise they've all gone.

Small business owners are stuck here waiting to see what will happen. They will probably be happy if workers rights, such as maternity pay are reduced after brexit.

Maybe it is just the top management who are getting themselves sorted. There have already been some announcements of banks/financial institutions moving departments to E27 countries - I'm sure that the trickle will become a flood

Not directly in the financial sector, but my dad's lady friend's ds is (or rather was until recently ) a journalist at the Telegraph. He's left the paper because he is so de-moralised at the ostrich-like attitude of its Brexit-supporting editors/owners. Apparently many of his fellow journalists at the paper (those that were actually talking to the financial sector) felt the same and many were voting with their feet. Which unfortunately means that those few journalists that are left there are all Brexit supporters and will go on presenting a filtered, sunny uplands and unicorns perspective and ignore any bad news.

Iirc, he has gone to the FT.

Some think that London, as a global city, is a European financial power in its own right, independent of "rEngland"
and can continue for at least a few years without passporting,
because it will take years to build up sufficient banking infrastructure and the highly specialised expertise elsewhere.

A lot of City business is nothing to do with the EU
Plus for some that is Eurobusiness, there is currently little expertise outside London.

The EU does require banks that do such business to have more than a token presence in an E27 country.
However, some banks are likely to move the bare minimum staff, until / unless they are actually forced to.

The biggest weapons to keep City business in London are that senior staff value the top quality cultural attractions, the infrastructure and especially the multicultural "metropolitan elite bubble" that so infuriates Brexiters

Simon the Stylite
@Sime0nStylites

1. So what’s Plan B? This is one of the most important questions to ask (for both Remainers and Leavers) following the Mansion House speech.
2. No Deal / Bad Deal was previously ubiquitous - one of the stand-out political phrases of the snap GE.
3. Of course one can argue that it was never much more than rhetoric but it was there. Anytime a Cabinet minister was asked what happens if it all goes well, the easy response was No Deal / Bad Deal.
4. But not anymore. I don’t recall a single mention of No Deal / Bad Deal in any of the speeches during the build-up to Friday and there was no use of these words in the speech itself.
5. The PM did refer at the beginning of the speech to ‘preparing for every scenario.’ She was asked about this at the QnA when she did reiterate No Deal / Bad Deal but it was interesting that she had to be prompted.
6. It’s also noteworthy that during the speech TM explicitly ruled out WTO as well as off the shelf Canada and Norway.
7. So what now is Plan B? This is an entirely legitimate question. Any organisation embarked on a project would have a back-up plan.
8. This requirement is especially acute in the case of Brexit where the EU had already rejected the 3 basket plan prior to the speech itself.
9. And when the PM has ruled out CU and SM something like membership - an obvious Plan B if the three baskets don’t work.

10. A view is that the implication of all of this is that not only is there no realistic Plan B there’s neither the willingness nor capacity to pursue any other direction if things go wrong (as they are likely to). 11. ‘What’s Plan B?’ Should be the question that every interviewer asks the govt. And if there’s no good answer? The implication will be that there isn’t one. /ends

Also today:

Daniel Hannan
@DanielJHannan
We've tried in good faith to secure a deep and close partnership, but if Brussels isn't interested, we should prepare for a skeleton deal.

The EU is treating Britain like North Korea. It's time we prepared to walk away

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/03/04/eu-treating-britain-like-north-korea-time-prepared-walk-away/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Agriculture and farming have no such unique advantage and would be in serious trouble if Britain becomes a 3rd country, outside the Single Market.
RNorth thinks exports of perishable goods would stop for at least 6 months, until the necessary databanks and organising of danitary, phyto-sanitary checks and certifications can be put in place.
That's an example of non-tariff barriers that come automatically on leaving the SM

Manufacturing industry too, is likely to shed jobs, but firms would probably wait until the next retooling for new models is required, before moving out

e.g. car firms typically have genuinely new models - i.e. more than "facelifts" - about every 5 years, which requires investment in new tools, robots, production lines.
This setup costs hundreds of millions, so they would probably wait until the end of their current model cycle, to obtain full use of their last tooling investment.

However, there would be immediate higher costs, which would be passed onto consumers:
disrupted JIT chains - plus for exports - new certifications, Type Approvals etc

Plan B is to keep asking for Plan A

lala everyone I know is getting their ducks in a row so they can move if they need to - paperwork for any other citizenship they're entitled to, decorating the house so it's ready for letting / sale etc. So if the future of the city looks bleak many will ship out - it might look quick but the prep will already have been done quietly in the background.

Yep
I'm sorting out Irish passports for me and the kids
We are doing the last of the decorating that needs doing to the house
After that some major savings will need to be made
If we need to leave I want to be prepared
😔

...not that im a big city banker!! 😁

I wish I could plan to leave. Still DD wants to be either a research scientist or a paediatrician and DS is amazing at maths, so hopefully they will have the skills to leave if they need to in the future.

Just watched TM on AM. I am confused. She said that agriculture was one of the areas we would want to diverge on, whilst maintaining high standards. But surely the main issue with the Irish border is transportation of agricultural products. Am I being thick or is this incompatible?

Just watched Mandelson point out to IDS that Trump has said that free trade deals are available waste of time. So much for our FTA then.

A lot of city work isn't EU facing - the bit of the city that I am on the periphery of (commodities/metals) isn't really very affected by Brexit. There will be some extra hassle associated with moving commodities inside the EU, but nothing fundamental will change.

I have no idea what percentage of city business is affected by loss of passporting, but only a percentage of that percentage will actually be at risk. But even a low-single-digit percent loss of business (and the associated tax revenues) would be a big deal. Those city revenus and jobs support a whole host of service industry jobs further down the chain - nannies, restaurants, taxis, plumbers, decorators etc. The multiplier effect works on the way down as well as on the way up.

Placemarking with my favourite cartoon on the issue
shop.kaltoons.com/products/original-artwork-of-brexit-negotiations-from-the-economist

I bet that banking/pharmaceuticals & and all other areas where official representation in an eu country is vital are working hard to get things ready by the march '19 deadline. one year is not a lot of time for transitioning complex processes and moving people.

It has been surprising how meek the City has been about Brexit.

Actually it makes perfect sense. Anyone with half a brain knew from the off that like all before, "Brexit had no form, no shape and no substance.

So why do your opponents heavy lifting by getting involved in a never ending parameter-shifting debate when time and tide will (and are) doing it for you ?

Maybe the city is actually earning those bonuses at the moment ?

Also, I suspect the heart of the city will continue to function for the people at the heart of the city regardless. It'll be the next rung down that starts to feel the hit.

From what I hear the City are both incandescent and incredulous
but they also know that anything they say will be jumped on by populists and tabloids
so they sit tight

also TM does not have a business bone in her body
she has never worked so does not understand it

the city and the big firms will look after themselves, not the rest of the country that relies on their tax revenues

Caught the news about Germany finally sorting out a coalition. Do posters here think it will have any effect on Brexit ?

Chanel and BMW didn't exactly mount the barricades last time either.
And Siemens, Hugo Boss, Porsche etc.
That's not what they do.

Caught the news about Germany finally sorting out a coalition. Do posters here think it will have any effect on Brexit ?

none at all imo

Mr Seeking's business is planning on UK only supplying UK in future and not Europe. New production lines will be placed in EU not UK. You wouldn't guess this from general publicity they put out. Companies don't want the abuse that comes from being honest about the cost of Brexit. It was clear enough to us that an overseas job made sense regardless of having recently bought a house and having settled DC.

Not entirely relevant to the previous discussions, but I thought back to when Theresa May was crowing in triumph at the 2016 Tory conference, talking of making hostile environments for foreigners and citizens of nowhere, whilst pandering to her extreme right. This is the time she should have been sitting down to make a list of all those agencies which we would be leaving as a matter of course, since we apparently voted to have nothing at all to do with the EU, and working out how to replicate them. Only now has she realised, and as has been pointed out, some of them don't allow associate membership, or only for aspiring members.