Westminstenders: The Final Week

[RedToothBrush]

Our final week in the EU...

Continued

David Henig @davidheniguk
Then there's the European Medicines Agency and Clinical Trials Directive. No ECJ means far more limited collaboration with other countries in clinical trials and access to medicine. 11/
t.co/wsJbZASSGs

Then there's the Unified Patent Court (if ever implemented), European Chemicals Agency, Aviation Safety, Erasmus, research programmes - the UK will find it difficult to have any meaningful cooperation with any on the basis of Johnson's speech 12/

Back to trade and the pre speech brief talks Japan, Australia, New Zealand rather than the US or EU. For Australia or New Zealand locking in agricultural access is crucial (hello UK lamb farmers). But for Japan? Could tariff free car access be a factor? Hello Sunderland... 13/

The government's cheerleaders tell us that the EU's approach to trade agreements is outdated, and free ports will help for some reason. In reality the EU has more agreements than anyone, and regulatory alignment is crucial in modern trade 14/

We also hear of the possibility of new pro-Brexit think tanks, which makes one wonder, where precisely are those pushing for sensible EU ties? We have the world's largest and most developed single market on our doorstep, the country can't be moved to the Pacific... 15/

Maybe Johnson won't actually say no alignment, no ECJ, no concessions. Most likely these are just words to which he's giving flexible meaning to talk tough to England, though heaven know why bother now. For sure UK diplomats will know the EU will just shrug and roll eyes 16/

Meanwhile tomorrow the EU will publish their negotiating mandate, in which we don't expect too many surprises. Talks will start with the UK in which Johnson's speech will be probed to see exactly what it means. Don't expect too much progress for a few months 17/

In the business community meanwhile expect no-deal plans to intensify, and investment to continue to struggle. Why invest in a country whose government talks in wholly unrealistic ways about the economy and trade? 18/

No alignment, no ECJ, no concessions isn't typical tough talk at the start of negotiations. It is a government unable to break out of four years of unrealistic discussion about what we could achieve outside the EU. It seems another chance is about to be missed. 19/ end

'Get Brexit done' they said...

... It'll all be over by 31st Jan they implied...

... Canada deal now isn't enough. Now it's Australia aka Managed No Deal.

Ffs.

Get prepping again.

Was anyone else on here touched by Donald Tusk's words on Andrew Marr this morning? He spoke to Remainers directly (and indirectly to the Scots but with no less empathy). He also gave a realistic assessment of what is likely to come next in terms of standards and borders. He also had interesting things to say about why ino we have arrived at where we are today, and what happened from the EU perspective at pivotal points in the process ie Salzburg. Worth watching.

I saw the thread asking if those "panicking about Brexit feel they've been had" ...

Some Brexiters seem to think it won't get any worse than this
I cba to tell them that the WA means things (should) mostly stay as they are until 1 Jan 2021.

Donald Tusk has been a loyal and very valuble friend to the UK

I doubt if anyone in the UK govt have thanked him for trying to help us, ever since the A%0 invocation,
but I'm sure most Westministenders appreciate his help and are greatful

bigchoc

And the one about flying following a no deal

They dont seem to have grasped that we dont have ‘no deal’....yet

Thank you for sharing that, RTB
I chose to ignore that poster too, BCF and Rufus
I plan to watch the Andrew Marr interview with Donald Tusk later. I heard a brief clip earlier. Such a decent man.

I have the greatest respect for Donald Tusk. His attitude could so easily, "did you then, bugger off." but he has been calm and kind and considered and has had our best interests at heart. Unlike our own politicians.

As has been pointed out, Donald Tusk was arrested and jailed, with other members of Solidarność, for his political beliefs, while the likes of BJ, JRM and NF were fannying around on their featherbed of privilege.

I sent a message to his Twitter account months ago thanking him for his dignity in the face of so much arrogance and provocation and his continued courtesy and sympathy towards UK inhabitants in the UK and the EU.

Yes AuldAlliance and such a shame that the far right are giving him such gip in Poland and that iirc, all Member States voted in favour of his re-election except his own country! He doesn't deserve that.

EU deals / relations with Australia

https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/610/australia-and-eu_en

Several trade-related agreements with the EU, plus political declarations.

Works pretty well for the Australian economy,
but that is far less complex and developed than the UK economy ... and on the other side of the world to the EU

Australia is much closer to its regional trading partners and we can't afford not to be close to ours

The EU is Australia's largest trading partner for services

• services are about 80% of UK exports, but so far BJ only seems to be aiming for a deal on goods. Hardly any services in CETA

catfromjapan
The fact that Labour HQ are appointing Corbynites before Starmer wins the race shows that they know he will not tolerate the way they have behaved.

His options during the GE were

• stay silent
• get deselected

so he stayed silent knowing that Corbyn would crash

It will be interesting to see how it pans out but the People's Front of Judea attitudes are very unlikely to be welcome by the end of April

Who likes dot joining, hypocrisy and talking about money ?

Pursuant so some threads on these very forums about cash and the clear divide between people who have no intention of doing without and those (raises hand) who can happily go weeks without seeing real currency, I was interested to catch this snippet ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51214832

In January, New York City passed a law requiring businesses to accept dollar bills. The measure followed similar steps in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and New Jersey.

Several other cities, including Washington DC, are considering similar moves and Congress recently heard comments about a country-wide proposal.

(contd)

Interesting because the exclusion of people (sometimes by their own hand ) from the digital economy is becoming an extension of making the poor subsidise the rich.

But also interesting because the whole USA DNA is supposed to be built on "the free market" and surely passing laws to interfere in that is as socialist as we come.

TL;DR is that Americans are a bunch of hypocrites like any and every one else in the world. Preaching the "free market" when it drives down wages and costs, and all of a sudden turning to the nanny state when they need to squeeze more from Joe Soap.

Which reminds me that one theory about the Huawei situation is that Trump is trying to do an end run around WTO rules on protectionism but cloaking it in "national security".

Oh god, now there's been stabbings/shooting in Streatham. Looks like terrorism.

www.suffolkgazette.com/news/brexit-nhs-cheque-pen-runs-out/

There was an awkward moment in Downing Street today when Boris Johnson’s pen ran out while he tried to sign the first £350 million cheque to the NHS.

The Prime Minister was eager to begin the untold benefits of Brexit with his first weekly post-EU payment to the health service, his side-of-a-bus pledge during the referendum campaign.

But after scribbling out today’s date, and ‘National Health Service’ in the pay line, his biro began to fade and stopped working at all after the word three on the second line.

(contd)

services are about 80% of UK exports

Services form about 80% of the UK economy but only about 45% of exports.

80% of our exports to the EU, iirc

Must hunt for a link with stats later

Oops sorry, 40-something % to the EU as well

Hi tobee.

Just seen this about Streatham. ☹️

Oh no.

Lewis Goodall@lewis_goodall

Two interpretations to today’s briefing:

1. repeat of Downing St Brexit stage 1 strategy.
   They need adversaries to slay.
   Tough talk which signals to base you’re serious then last minute retreat on certain areas and sell as triumph.

2. preparing the way for no deal/blame game.

It’s intriguing because it was always the argument from the PM and others that Britain was powerful enough that a bespoke, unique and profound economic deal would be crafted.
We aren’t Norway, Switzerland etc.

According to this, we’re Australia and maybe not even that.

Re Streatham
Thank goodness we have really good police in London
the attacker was killed
nobody else shot by the police
no other idiots owning guns
and the attacker appears to have only managed to injure two other people.

And then the money shot we've all been building up to... the entire thing was a setup done by Remainers because, well

I've been following the Twitter spat between Jonathan Portes pointing out mistakes in Matthew Goodwin's latest (?) research paper (it's been good). But, this was also posted to support how wrong they viewed Goodwin has been about a particular point. Anyway, long way of going back to the populists loving conspiracy theories and this blog post is interesting on this.

Understanding Paranoid Populism: how to misuse a theory and misunderstand history

colinrtalbot.wordpress.com/2019/07/10/understanding-paranoid-populism-how-to-misuse-a-theory-and-misunderstand-history/

Swedish
Portes is an interesting chap.
Others in the field like Copus and Denham have contrasting viewpoints.

'ode to joy' just came in at number 2 on the UK top 40.