Westminstenders: Summer Season

[RedToothBrush]

No its not the weather making your brain rot and stop thinking.

Thats just Brexit.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/7121139/philip-hammond-theresa-may-budget-row/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Philip Hammond tells Theresa May to ‘butt out’ of his Budget as tensions rise between them
The pair's most recent clash after the Chancellor was left fuming due to the PM's controversial attempt to raise the price of plastic bags from 5p to 10p

Boring Phil has been all over the news today.

Boring Phil does talk some sense e.g. saying that no-one voted to be poorer. So far from the Leavers we have heard how it will be OK in 50 years time. I am 100% sure that I will be dead then, so I am not holding my breath.

Apparently Minford has been talking again in the Express. Here's Frances Coppola's breakdown - it's very good. Doubt anyone who reads the Express will read it though.

www.coppolacomment.com/2018/08/patrick-minfords-holidays.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/xgewA+(Coppola+Comment)

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/former-sas-chief-final-say-brexit-referendum-major-security-concern-a8511846.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true
Final Say: Former SAS chief calls no-deal a ‘major security concern’ as he backs fresh Brexit referendum
Major General Jonathan Shaw tells Kim Sengupta that the 2016 referendum was the UK’s ‘Arab Spring moment’

Article is paywalled but the questions alone are good.

Peter Foster @pmdfoster
The #Brexit crunch is coming, so after the summer break I've written a piece looking at the 10 questions we should be looking at....but are too busy shouting at each other to consider. Here are my ten... /1

How much clout does a nation of 65 million people have in global trade?

Will the British government ask for the ability to extend the transition period?

Do we really want a trade deal with the United States?

Should the UK remain in a customs union with the EU?

What’s the real appetite among the British public to go ‘buccaneering’?

What economic price is worth paying to end free movement?

Is it time to throw our lot in with EU defence?

Will a second referendum fix anything?

How politically unsustainable is vassalage really?

Was just checking if you were all concentrating :) And the 10th question is... Does a ‘customs border’ in the Irish Sea really risk the break up of the UK?

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/08/28/10-pressing-brexit-questions-need-answers-dont-get-asked/

I've lost the tweet - sorry! - but Bonnie Greer is tweeting about rumours of a snap election before March.

Honestly. Who the hell would you vote for? 🙁

This one?

twitter.com/Bonn1eGreer/status/1034407896010903554

That farage link will give me nightmares 😨

Snap election? Would have to be lib dems at this point.

That's it, SwedishEdith . I'm sorry for leaving it for you to find.

Honestly, I'm so disgusted - actually disgusted - at the moment.

They are all terrible on women's issues.

Neither of the two main parties are offering to stop Brexit.

And the Green Party actually sicken me.

Labour set for a policy shift

-Countdown to Labour conference begins, with unprecedented number of local parties set to submit anti-Brexit motion

-Almost 200 constituency parties debating motion to “stop Tory Brexit and win a radical Labour government”

-Key left figures behind Labour for a People’s Vote, with Momentum now likely to hold vote among its members

-Surge in grassroots support for left wing anti-Brexit campaign, as thousands attend “The Left Against Brexit” rallies

www.anothereurope.org/labour-set-for-policy-shift-as-left-and-labour-grassroots-turns-against-brexit/

Also update on the #peoplesvote on change.org list of rallies at party conferences been released.

Once again, Arlene 'Twinkletoes' Foster shows Theresa 'Foot in Mouth' May who's the boss.

(The music was originally 'Arlene's on Fire')

The truly horrible thing about the post-Brexit UK seeking opportunities in Africa is that workers' rights and health and safety concerns will not be part of the picture for those lucky Africans who will be the 'beneficiaries' of all of this willy waving. It also strikes me that setting up something like, for eg., a rubber glove factory in Nigeria will mean that rubber glove factories in the UK will have to compete with very low cost labour.

Once again, Arlene 'Twinkletoes' Foster shows Theresa 'Foot in Mouth' May who's the boss.

Well a small glimmer of humour in these dark days. Love the coincidence that their black/red trouser jacket colour combo further facilitates the comparison.

The Settled status scheme (pilot) was 'revealed' by a MN poster a month or more back. As I have friends to whom this would apply, I emailed them to investigate further.

red The 2nd question contains implicit optimism:
"Will the British government ask for the ability to extend the transition period?"

It is still assuming we have a transition period.

Without a WIthdrawal Agreement there will be no transition period
and unless the UK signs up to the NI backstop - or much less likely, the RoI agrees to drop it - there will be no WA

Just a random post (not following the thread) but thinking out loud I just realised something really basic.

The PM has recently said that current views are not relevant and "The issue is: are we doing what the British people wanted.[ past tense]"

Similarly In the responses to gov petitions and in responses to my occasional letters to my MP they trot out the same line about delivering on the Leave vote which was the 'biggest mandate' in U.K. political history blah blah. I have been retorting to my MP with the fact that the polls have now changed. But I have just realised something really basic. The remain vote was also the second (or third?) largest mandate in history including the vote to join so that dilutes my MPs point.

Don't know why I'm rehashing old ground as Jeremy Corbyn has said in the attached Sky article "the ship has sailed" on staying in. (I suppose it hasn't sailed on re joining without rebates and exemptions. though...)

https://news.sky.com/story/how-britons-would-vote-on-second-eu-referendum-not-the-issue-may-says-11484386

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/4py5mj/euvoteebiggestmandateeinukkpoliticalhistory/

Peter Ungphakorn @coppetainPU

Time for a reminder.

"Rolling over" EU free trade deals (eg with southern Africa) for the post-Brexit UK will NOT "roll over" the whole value of those deals.

Not unless "diagonal rules of origin" are included. And yes, that's as complicated as it sounds.

UK exports now qualify for free trade with any EU FTA partner even if they contain German, Italian, Spanish, etc content. But after Brexit any German, Italian, etc content would't count: it would have to be mainly UK content to qualify for free trade.

I wonder if Liam has got his head around this?

So if a UK free trade agreement with Japan or South Africa etc is to be as valuable to UK exporters as the one they now enjoy through the EU, then the agreement would have to allow content from the EU27 to be included in UK exports. That would bring the EU into the negotiations.

Uh oh.

Sam Lowe @SamuelMarcLowe

So, one of the under-reported reasons May is actually prioritising South Africa is Ford. (Yes, cars again.)

Ford currently run a supply chain from the UK, via South Africa, back into the EU.

An engine is made in Dagenham, shipped to South Africa, put in a vehicle, and then sold back into the EU.

The engine enters South Africa tariff free, under the SADC-EU Economic Partnership Agreement.

The final vehicle can then be sold back into the EU tariff free, from South Africa, because the UK-originating engine can be accounted for as 'local' for the purpose of meeting the EPA's local content threshold thanks to provisions on bilateral cumulation included in SADC-EU.

To maintain this supply chain the UK needs to do two things:

1. Replace/replicate the EU's agreement with South Africa;
2. Negotiate a trilateral agreement between South Africa, the EU and the UK, allowing for cumulative rules of origin

And how long will this all take to negotiate?

Agree completely @mathanxiety. Those taken on in Africa may only receive £50 a week and to them it may represent an 'acceptable' possibly even good wage (I doubt they get significant social benefits from their Government). Cutting UK wages to this sort level is I presume one of the aspirations of the ERG.
Those basic WTO trade deals. If course we already have 'better' trade deals in that part of the world, as in most places, but they are because we are members of the EU.

That's very informative, Buteo to explain the Africa bung

Even for May, bunging £2. billion to safeguard £4 billion trade seemed daft, since the 4 bn is total volume, of which the profit would be a smallish %

Trying to enable Ford UK to continue selling makes this understandable.

Shame if May hasn't realised the complexity / consequences of Rules of Origin, though.

While Mrs May and others are happy to trash Mr Hammonds calculations, even it they were massively out the important thing is that they are NEGATIVE for the UK economy (plus the fact it is already happening) which is far removed from the sunny uplands that Leaver's voted for.
There was talk, I think on this thread, about Switzerland. Stereotypically from 'schoolboy geography' due to the difficulties of transportation and lack of minerals (steel and coal) the 'Swiss model' bought in steel etc and concentrated on making high precision, high value goods which kept transportation costs down. If the UK were to want to emulate this model rather than restart the more traditional 'bulk manufacture' model of the past, we would have to find a niche market for 'whatever' that is prepared to pay over the odds due to trading on WTO basic rules. Coal, Iron ore etc although it exists under UK soil has largely exhausted the 'good stuff 'and what remains would need innovative ways to extract it economically to attempt to compete with IIRC Poland and Germany. Nice idea but we would be very late to the party.

I don't know what Labour's leave/remain split is like or whether since more 'detail' about what leaving really means whether a significant number of Labour leavers have changed their minds, plus the 'cork in the bottle' Corbyn. They don't look viable at this point.
PLUS, are MPs 'allowed' to just change their minds without some form of 'vote'? Democracy is supposedly about people voting for an MP to represent them. What is the point if the people vote for an MP who then makes his/her own mind up about what is 'counted' when at Westminster?

news.sky.com/story/uk-and-france-in-fresh-scallop-war-as-angry-french-fisherman-attack-british-boats-11484706