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.

I'm just....baffled

They must be planning on no deal

They must be

It's only logical conclusion one can draw

Ds1 does his gcses next may/June

After that I will he happy to leave 😔😔😔

(paywall) RoI: May's irrational fantasy is not as simple as A, B or C

As usual, the RoI media is by far the most knowledgeable about Brexit & EU
Writer known to be close to RoI govt views:

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/colm-mccarthy/mays-irrational-fantasy-is-not-as-simple-as-a-b-or-c-36666485.html
…
Michel Barnier's tweeted response was nicely understated.

'I welcome Theresa May's speech. Clarity about UK leaving Single Market and Customs Union & recognition of trade-offs will inform EU guidelines re: future Free Trade Agreement.'

Translation:
'Noted your omission of anything which would alter the draft guidelines we released on Wednesday.
Noted also that you have ruled out anything other than a third-country free trade agreement, which will take forever.'
…
Patient explanations of this obvious constraint from EU negotiators have been ignored since the EU referendum and are still being ignored.

There can be no frictionless trade, across the Irish or any other European Union border,
unless the UK agrees to a comprehensive customs arrangement and sticks with single market rules.

The single market is designed to be indivisible - there can be no offer of selective membership in bits of the single market.

In ruling out both customs union and single market,
Mrs May is ruling out frictionless trade not just with Ireland but with all 27 EU countries.

It is inconceivable that she still fails to understand this and the irritation of her EU interlocutors is no longer concealed.

The hiatus about the Irish Border is a manifestation of this broader misalignment of the UK's red lines (no customs union, no single market)
with Mrs May's stated objective (frictionless trade).

Just as the red lines must produce a hard border in Ireland, so must they produce hard borders at Calais and Rotterdam.

Only if the EU-27 were able to somehow ignore its treaty-based customs and trading rules could the UK as a third country enjoy the member-like access to European markets to which it appears to feel entitled.

That this irrational fantasy has survived as the fulcrum of British policy needs to be explained:

Conveniently it facilitates a fall-back narrative that the failure of the policy, which is inevitable, is the fault of the EU negotiators.
…
The second explanation is that persevering with the fantasy permits the continuation of the referendum campaign, which was inconclusive in two respects:

The result was close: just 51.9pc voted to depart the EU.
But the more important reason is that the Leave side won the referendum but did not win the argument.

In particular, the British government has been unable to sustain the Leave contention that there would be no economic costs to the UK's departure nor the pretence that Brexit would be simple.

Mrs May's latest speech at last acknowledged that there will be some loss of trade access.

The complexity of quitting is now obvious to all, while the overall economic costs to the UK have been confirmed in a leaked civil service study which the government refuses to release.

On the specific question of the Irish Border,
Mrs May reiterated her faith in the avoidance of a hard border through undisclosed technological solutions, details to follow.
This is Option B of the three in the draft withdrawal agreement.
Experts in trade and customs matters do not believe that such a solution is workable.

She also ruled out Option C, a border in the Irish Sea,
and Option A, a long-term deal which would avoid any borders between the UK and the EU-27 through adherence to the single market and customs union.

Friday's speech means the two feasible options (A and C) have been ruled out by red lines, while Option B is ruled out by infeasibility.
…
The constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom has been rendered conditional by the Belfast Agreement of 1998 and the Edinburgh Agreement of 2012 which now form part of the constitutional order.

Both Northern Ireland and Scotland have in effect been granted a right of secession and both voted Remain at the 2016 EU referendum.

The threat to the UK's territorial integrity could well turn out to be Brexit.
Its constitutional integrity has already been qualified by the Belfast and Edinburgh agreements.
…
Last Thursday he [Mogg] accused former prime minister John Major, who had argued for Option A, of voicing
"...the contempt of the European elite for democracy".

Rees-Mogg is a multimillionaire, the son of a peer and was educated at Eton and Oxford.
Major grew up in working-class Brixton in south London and left school at 16.
…
The kid-glove treatment afforded by the British mainstream media to Rees-Mogg and other items of political exotica from the Tory backbenches
has sustained the unreality of the government's Brexit policy.

The media is part of the problem.

Mrs May acknowledged there will be some loss

I'll say. I wonder what notes TM taps into her iPhone?

Here is a list I’ve been keeping on my notes pages. Do you think TM has a more accurate list like this too?

Is this worth it?

•7 days ago · Standard Life Aberdeen, the UK’s largest listed fund house, is setting up an investment and distribution business in Dublin.

•Two groups Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. and Daiwa Securities Group Inc. have new picked Frankfurt as their EU hub.

•Insurer Admiral Group is the latest to reveal plans for a new European Union hub office in Spain to maintain continuity in its trading needs after the UK’s exit from the EU under Brexit.

•T Rowe Price, the $1tn US asset manager, is seeking the approval of Luxembourg’s financial regulator (CSSF) to strengthen its presence in Luxembourg. The Luxembourg company will become the new head office for its EU operations.

•Barclays have said they will set up EU headquarters in Dublin.

•JPMorgan Chase & Co plans to hire a significant number of people in Dublin in its expanding custody and funds business.

•Bank of America have said they will set up EU headquarters in Dublin.

•Lloyd’s of London to set up EU hub in Brussels

•LONDON - Mizuho, one of Japan's "Big Four" banks, will set up an EU base in Frankfurt in order to mitigate the potential impact of Brexit.

•Travelers Europe said on Tuesday that it will apply to the Central Bank for authorisation for a new, wholly owned insurance subsidiary in Dublin to serve its European Union based companies post-Brexit.

•US insurer AIG plans a European Union hub in Luxembourg following Britain's decision to leave the bloc, the biggest financial ...

•Citigroup Inc has chosen Frankfurt as its newest trading hub in the European Union and plans to present that option to its board of directors this week for approval, according to a person with knowledge of the decision.

•Frankfurt has emerged as a winner of the Brexit vote, with Standard Chartered picking the city as their EU hub in recent weeks.

•Deutsche Bank AG is preparing to move large parts of the trading and investment-banking assets it currently books in London to its hometown of Frankfurt.

•Nomura Holdings Inc picked Frankfurt as their EU hub in recent weeks.

•(EMA), which currently employs over 900 people in London, but after voting Amsterdam has been crowned the winner and the new host of the agency, which will move after Britain leaves the EU.

•Paris will be the new home of the relocating European Banking Authority, which is required to move from London following the Brexit vote.

Some Victims of the referendum, the weaker pound and the loss of EU membership.

Carillion
150 jobs from Merck.
Jaeger
East clothing
Travis Perkins
Monarch
Multiyork
Shoe City
Rivington pink wafer biscuits
Southern salads
Lowcostholidays,
Hewden
Maplin
Toy R Us
Feather & Black
Multiyork

And those with moves or cuts include?
Jamie Oliver
Prezzo
Chimichanga

Moves

Hiscox
Goldman Sachs
jP Morgan
Standard chartered
UBS
Deutsche Bank

Felt despairing especially after Jeremy Corbyn’s too little too late speech a few days ago, felt resigned to the Nemesis after centuries of our British hubris but my determination to fight is coming back....

Westminsterenders break up or make up and you couldn't make it up.

Staggering

A PP was spot on...

It's a coup

To turn us into a no regulatory haven for the super rich

The counter argument is that this sort of business closure happens anyway, but not to this extent.

I find the delusional arrogance of British MPs shocking and embarrassing. Just last night on Peston a labour MP was saying that they don't want to be in THE customs union because then they'd be 1 voice of 28. They want a customs arrangement with the EU instead where the UK and EU are equal partners. In other words, they don't see these individual countries as important enough to lick the UK's boots, the UK is equal to 27 of them.

Oh I forgot some store closures at:

M and S,
Debenhams,
Next ( no sympathy),and
Homebase.

Some of this might have happened due to internet shopping? But not to this extent.

Meanwhile the countries remaining in the trading bloc are on an up.

To turn us into a no regulatory haven for the super rich

Which the rest of the world is going to simply let happen ?

I don't think so.

The UK has just become the battleground for a fight it has no stake in. Where the worlds EnorCorps slug it out trying to get one over on each other.

"Uk based" will become ast tainted and suggestive a phrase as "offshore" - only worldwide.

(Is that enough for a film ?)

In particular, the British government has been unable to sustain the Leave contention that there would be no economic costs to the UK's departure nor the pretence that Brexit would be simple.

I don't know about a film. I'm thinking of writing a book. "Brexit by lists."
Chapter one (as per my earlier post) was list of lost businesses.

Chapter 2 is lists of quotes:

•“There will be no downside to Brexit only a considerable upside.”David Davis

• "The day after we vote to leave we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want." Gove (9 April 2016)
• "There will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market." BoJo (26 June 2016)
• "Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy – the UK holds most of the cards in any negotiation. "John Deadwood(17 July 2016)

•	"The free trade agreement that we will have to do with the European Union should be one of the easiest in human history. " Liam Fox  (20 July 2017)

Anyone else remembering the old joke about the cat in the tree ?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-43279861

A delegation from Sinn Féin is due to meet the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels later on Monday.

The move comes after Prime Minister Theresa May said she did not want to see a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic after Brexit.

(contd)

In other words, they don't see these individual countries as important enough to lick the UK's boots, the UK is equal to 27 of them.

Hubris again and we know what that leads to..

And the irony is if you talk to any politically interested people from other places like Finland or Austria or Poland or Romania.

They previously envied us, seeing us as a powerful leading EU member with real internal clout. Except bizarrely we didn't all see ourselves like that.

Cat in a tree?

DGRossetti I'm thinking of a cat on a hot tin roof

lonelyplanet
Corporate legal entities should have had casting votes in any referendum on changing EU membership.So why don't we hear a louder corporate voice?
Just to pick up on that point

Because the leave voters HATE big business.
They hate the Citizens of nowhere
They blame the ongoing austerity on the EU and big business

And the Whitehall politicians have every incentive to keep it that way.

I've ranted many times about the minor changes to the UK tax code which would level the paying field massively between the super rich and the rest
but as all MPs aspire to join the super rich, they will never enact them.

Clawing at anyone trying to help but still stuck, I think

Seems cat on a roof was the original ...

Jimmy and his brother Ralph both lived in the same town. Jimmy lived with their 90 year-old mother, and Ralph lived across town with his 12 year-old cat, Silky.

Ralph was obsessed with Silky and treated her like a queen. The two were never apart. But one day, Ralph learned he had to go to England on business. Cats had to stay in quarantine for two weeks in order to get into that country, so it was simply impractical for Ralph to take Silky with him.

Ralph asked Jimmy to care for his cat, and Jimmy agreed. So Ralph brought Silky over, spent an hour explaining the nuances of servicing the aging feline, and departed for London.

Every night Ralph would call and ask "How's Silky?". The first four nights, Jimmy, holding in his growing irritation at his brother's cat-obsession, answered, "Silky's fine," but the fifth night, in response to the question, he blurted out, "Silky's dead!"

Hearing that, Ralph almost died of shock, himself. When he recovered, he said to his brother, "Jimmy, that's not the way to break news like that to someone. You don't just blurt out information like that. You have to prepare a person."

" Tonight when I called," Ralph went on, "You should have said, 'Silky's fine, but she's up on the roof.' Then tomorrow you could have told me, "Silky fell off the roof and I took her to the vet's." Then, the next day, you could have said, "Silky didn't make it, Ralph, she's dead," and I would have been able to handle the news."

"By the way, Jimmy," Ralph asked, "How's mom?"

"Oh, she's fine," said Jimmy. "But she's up on the roof."

So, Mrs May, how's Brexit ?

Ha! Thanks for the explanation. Very apt.

They previously envied us, seeing us as a powerful leading EU member with real internal clout. Except bizarrely we didn't all see ourselves like that.

On the feminism board I read that when you've been in a position of privilege for a while equality looks like oppression. Is that Britain's problem?

..when you've been in a position of privilege for a while equality looks like oppression. Is that Britain's problem?

Yes.Yes.All part of the post colonial hubris thing.

Cat joke😸!

A reality check^^ on UK vs World:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListoffcountriesbyyGDP_(nominal)

btw, India may soon overtake UK as #6 economy

# 2017 GDP ($) % World GDP
1 United States 19,362,129 25.8%

• E28* * 17,112,922
• E27 14,500,000 19.3%

2 China 11,937,562 3 Japan 4,884,489 4 Germany 3,651,871 5 France 2,574,807 6 UK 2,565,051 3.5% 7 India 2,439,008

Formatting not great on App. Important lines:

E27 14,500,000 19.3%
UK 2,565,051 3.5%

Yes BigChoc. We were the fifth strongest economy in the world.

The bottom line is we are clearly heading downwards. No-one seriously can believe we will arise Phoenix like ascending to 1st, 2nd,3rd or 4 th position as a result of this.

So the only explanation for the Brexit religion, for both politicians and normal people, is that they are happy for the country to be worse off. This is because either they believe that their personal circumstances will be better^^ off at the expense of the country as a whole, or they don't care in a self flagellation type way!

Selfishness versus collective belief.