Westminstenders: Summer Season

[RedToothBrush]

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

Thats just Brexit.

Directors are very likely to be sued / officially censored if the company loses money / goes bust because they didn't plan for Brexit.
It's not like Brexit is an unforseen event

Sensible companies are planning, but keeping their heads down for as long as possible

Some prep is very undramatic & nearly invisible:
continuing with production of current models if cost-effective, but not investing in the UK for the next model line

Once / if there is an announcement that no deal is expected - maybe by the EU after their Otober Council meeting -
there may be suddenly a lot of announcements though.

Some UK companies that are likley to be affected are eitherr lying, or haven't started to plan
e.g. BA

Directors are very likely to be sued / officially censored if the company loses money / goes bust because they didn't plan for Brexit.

And here we are again.

What planning ? How can you plan for something which you cannot predict the effects of ?

The closest I can think of is people going for a camping trip, with absolutely no idea what the weather could be like where they're going. Let along what it would be like.

Do you take sunscreen ? Parasols ? Heavy duty tents. Tie downs. Snow shovels ? Snow shoes ? Butane ? Propane ? Insect repellent ?

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-barnier-maas/barnier-offers-britain-close-ties-but-no-single-market-a-la-carte-idUKKCN1LE1R3

“We are prepared to offer Britain a partnership such as there never has been with any other third country,”

Barnier told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday after a meeting with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas,
adding that that could include economic as well as foreign and security policy ties.

“We respect Britain’s red lines scrupulously.
In return, they must respect what we are,” he said.

“Single market means single market ... There is no single market a la carte.”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D04fySyet2g

Unless my ears / French are wonky - Misty ? - Barnier said
85% of the work for the Withdrawal Agreement is now agreed

So, an extra 5% achieved; still 15% to go

DG Scope out how to cope with a no-deal Brexit - a hard Brexit would amount to much the same wrt companies.

Define all the areas of the business that would be affected
Define action plans to cope

If no deal is announced in October / November, there would probably be too little time to scope, plan and then act.

Barnier & Selmayr both recently warned EU businesses to prep for no deal and this has really started
A UK business of any size should have EU watchers to note this

My (German) firm has always EMailed a weekly digest of anything relevant in the media or public statements that might affect regulations and hence us.
We have meetings with legal dept reps years in advance of possible regs changes

Businesses I know of in Germany, Netherlands, Sweden all started their scoping soon after the damn ref and - at least since May reneged last December - started removing the Uk from supply chains
The tech firms I know started this removal also after the ref

Some UK businesses seem to have decided the Party of Business wouldn't let anything bad happen to business

We respect Britain’s red lines scrupulously.

“Single market means single market ... There is no single market a la carte.”

These are contradictory, no? Isn't one of the UK's supposed red lines about FOM? And another about the Irish border? Don't both of these make single-market access impossible?

Fully prepared to be told I'm wrong and ill-informed. My brain is reaching the point where it can't contain or process all the Brexit shit any more...

From what I hear in various grape vines, there is a lot more planning for Brexit than people realise.

One of the things firms will do, is relocate as much as possible to the EU. Which will mean massive UK redunanices.

So if you aren't hearing about a Brexit plan it could be because a company has a significant number of job losses as part of that potential plan, which of course they are going to want to keep under wraps until they have to do it.

It doesn't mean they haven't planned it.

FOM is one of the easiest aspects to either fudge or lie about.
Unless you and a hundred mates stand at all the customs posts with a clipboard no one (apart from Border Control) KNOWS exactly how many are coming and going. BC can simply 'lie' (under government direction) to the public.
Single market and Customs union. When it comes down to it people only really care about cost of a tin of beans (apart from the ERG etc) so in a way that could be fudged (BINO).
Make a big song and dance about sovereignty and say how we got it back (not that it ever went).
Pit these against 'no one moves in or out of the UK for 6 months' while flight and everything is renegotiated and apart from major disgruntlement in that Brexit was not HARD enough, things would probably calm down.
Of course we may already be past the point of no return if bigger industry and the financial sector really have moved out then we are already 'stuffed'. With the reports we have had so far this may well be the case.
Stopping the really serious 'Leavers' (ERG JRM etc) from squealing 'fake Brexit' would be a problem.

Stopping the really serious 'Leavers' (ERG JRM etc) from squealing 'fake Brexit' would be a problem.

The thing is, post Trump, they could squeal that at the hardest of Brexits, and get airtime. And they have every incentive to.

Cui bono ? May be liberal metropolitan elitism. But it's also a bloody good opener when reporting anything.

Respecting the UK's red lines does not mean granting it SIngle Market access - which is a UK aspiration for a deal, not a red line.

Respecting red lines of both sides would mean no deal.

WIth FOM, just apply the same rules as the E27 countries about being self-supporting, without benefits, for the first 6 months

The Uk's "FOM problem" is mostly a UK Home Office incompetence problem.

The drop in Sterling, plus the hostile Brexiters, has caused EU immigration to drop dramatically anyway.
It's just been partly replaced by immigration from developing countries
-which most Brexiters did not intend

Just trying to catch up with today's brexit news. So much has happened!

hester thanks for posting that, to tired for a full rant but did a ranting summary with a conclusion of I can't vote for you until you stop behaving like Tories

Well this is another US story which fits into the same box as locking children in cages:

twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1034900007923707904

Washington Post @washingtonpost
U.S. is denying passports to Americans along the border, throwing their citizenship into question
The Trump administration is accusing hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Hispanics along the border of using fraudulent birth certificates since they were babies, and it is undertaking a widespread crackdown on their citizenship.
In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings.

Frank Luntz @FrankLuntz
“His official American birth certificate shows he was delivered by a midwife in Brownsville, Texas…

But when Juan applied to renew his U.S. passport this year, the government’s response floored him. In a letter, the State Dept said it didn’t believe he was an American citizen.”

I'm sure we'll get this over here soon enough. We've already had Windrush.

David Liddington announcing to French business leaders: Chequers or no deal

HOOOOLY SHITTT !!
I hope he's bluffing

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-barnier-raab-lidington-no-deal-eu-berlin-pound-sterling-spike-jump-a8513226.html

.... But Theresa May’s unofficial Brexit minister David Lidington, who coordinates Cabinet activity around leaving the EU,
said the UK would only accept the Chequers deal or a no-deal.

“With exactly seven months until the end of the article 50 process and less than two months ahead of the October European council,
we face the choice between the pragmatic proposals we are discussing now with the European commission, or no deal,”
he told French business leaders in a speech on Wednesday.

“I truly feel that we are at a fork in the road.
There are trends on both sides of the Channel, both sides of the North Sea,
and both sides of the Atlantic that could see us drift apart.”

Unless the UK govt is prepared to modify Chequers re NI border etc there will be no Withdrawal Agreement
hence no transition period.
Just kiss your arse goodbye and fall off the cliff

Apparently there is an EU meeting to discuss FOM related issues on Sept 20th. It's about 5 years late but I suppose better late than never.
Trouble is that there are too many 'demanding' a hard Brexit or no deal and declaring anything less as a 'sell out' whereas with tweaking of what we had would have solved most of the issues.
Immigration, cracking down on immigrant workers that are not on the system (corrupt gangmasters and system being properly controlled) for example.
I vaguely remember having to have carnets to take stuff 'abroad' (which I brought back so it wasn't a sale). Fortunately there was a shipping dept doing the paperwork but it was still a PITA.

Getting 27 / 28 countries to talk along the same lines, let alone agree on actions, all takes time & parience.

If the EU were really the EUSSR that the Ultras claim, making policy quickly would be much easier !

My leaver FIL has just texted me to crow "I told you the EU would blink first!"

I just wish that Labour would come out against Brexit, and that between now and March, something would happen to cause a General Election. A General Election which again was inconclusive, but with Labour's position would give the lie to "80% voted for parties which support Brexit." So if Corbyn, whoever, managed to stitch up a minority Government, he/she could say, Brexit as envisaged by the Tories is dead.

I can't see the rest of the EU wearing the Chequers deal - they will say, quite correctly that Lidlington's own party doesn't accept this, with the high powered resignations as proof!

I don't think the EU has blinked. Redefining FoM is something they need for themselves. The Poles, Bulgarians and Romanians no more want their young people upping sticks and moving to Germany any more than they want to lose them to the UK.

Underneath all the fancy words, the EU position has not changed so far, on either the 4 pillars or NI,
but some simple souls believe fluff over substance

Yet another Brexit cost:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/29/no-deal-brexit-plan-medicine-supplies-cost-2bn

The health secretary’s plan to set aside six weeks’ worth of vital medicines to avoid supply disruptions in the event of a no-deal Brexit could cost up to £2bn