UK & EU Agree Post-Brexit Trade Deal

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

If you knew more about the motor sector, you would know that famously BL/Rover Group built cars in the UK for Honda before its Swindon factory opened.

Most car plants in Europe don't make electric cars but it's not rocket science to transfer an assembly line over to make them. In fact, Honda was planning to do this at Swindon. Honda would lose a lot of future car-buyers if it cited Brexit as a contributory reason for closure so sensibly it has not.

It's unclear whether the Ineos Grenadier will have any electric versions available.

Why would Ineos take on 3,500 people at Swindon, when they only needed 200 initially and only up to 500 people? Pure nonsense.
As a result of this, Portugal is also losing out on the proposed plant for making the bodies and chassis. Has Portugal been affected by Brexit?

[1andrew1]

Brexit news live: UK and EU 'on the precipice' of trade talks collapse, says Irish PM - ahead of Johnson's Brussels trip
https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-ne...ssels-12155941

---------- Post added at 17:25 ---------- Previous post was at 17:18 ----------

Originally Posted by nomadking

Why would Ineos take on 3,500 people at Swindon, when they only needed 200 initially and only up to 500 people? Pure nonsense.
As a result of this, Portugal is also losing out on the proposed plant for making the bodies and chassis. Has Portugal been affected by Brexit?

I'm not sure that kind of negative thinking is what is needed in Brexit Britain. We need to be seizing opportunities and thinking through how things can be achieved and not how they can't.
Ineos could have taken on those staff it needs and build up from that. If it does assembly work for Honda then I'm sure an agreement can be made for the necessary staff to stay on as long as needed and Honda can then fund their redundancy payments. Pure strawman nonsense to suggest they would all be taken on.

[Carth]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

I'm not sure that kind of negative thinking is what is needed in Brexit Britain.

12/10 on the irony scale

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Carth

12/10 on the irony scale

Indeed, that's more brass neck than a Victorian bath tap

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Carth

12/10 on the irony scale

Pritti Patel called. She would like her calculator back.

[1andrew1]

Liam Fox, 2017

The free trade agreement that we will have to do with the European Union should be one of the easiest in human history.

Financial Times, 9th December 2020

Boris Johnson and the EU have set a Sunday deadline for a “firm decision” on the fate of their future-relationship negotiations after three hours of talks in Brussels laid bare the divisions between the two sides.

A UK government official said that “very large gaps remain between the two sides” following a dinner in Brussels between Mr Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. The encounter was billed by both sides as an attempt to overcome the impasse in negotiations with barely three weeks left until Britain leaves the single market.

https://www.ft.com/content/fb655185-...f-fbe97176c891

[Mr K]

Here's an interesting one . More 'Project Fear' from the Torygraph I should think, they're always at it ..

Britons banned from travelling to EU countries from January 1

The UK's coronavirus case rate is too high for Britons to be allowed into the EU when Britain leaves the bloc next month.

Travellers from a limited number of countries with low coronavirus rates are allowed to visit EU countries for non-essential travel.

When the UK exits the bloc on Jan 1, residents will no longer be able to freely travel in Europe under the bloc's Covid safety rules, according to the Financial Times.

Eight non-EU countries, including Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, are on the list of "safe" third nations.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 18 EU countries have higher rates of Covid-19 than Britain.

To date, individual member states have been reluctant to override the EU recommendation to prohibit entry of travellers from countries not on the safe list.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...ary-1/#comment

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Here's an interesting one . More 'Project Fear' from the Torygraph I should think, they're always at it ..

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...ary-1/#comment

BoJo's dad won't be happy. How's one meant to check up on one's villa in Greece?

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Liam Fox, 2017


Financial Times, 9th December 2020

https://www.ft.com/content/fb655185-...f-fbe97176c891

Yup. It should have been. However the EU assumed we would bargain for extremely extensive single market engagement and lined up its demands in anticipation of that. In the event Britain has aimed for a far more modest trade deal, akin to that arranged with Canada. However the EU appears not to have recognised that if they give away less they get less in return.

Their demands for continuing regulatory alignment are absurd, as is their expectation that we would cede sovereignty over our maritime exclusive economic area. So yes, Liam Fox was absolutely right in 2017. It *should* have been easy. The EU has signed trade deals with countries that are not, and never will be, in any way aligned with its rule book.

There’s no real mystery as to why it hasn’t worked out as far as the EU is concerned - it simply lacks the philosophical ability to accommodate the idea that any country would choose to walk away from its grand unifying project. The UK has upended some quasi-religious assumptions on the continent and it simply doesn’t compute. The only real mystery is why anyone on this side of the channel is still blind to it.

Likewise, the EU have always stated (since 2016) the importance of the Single Market, and would resist any efforts to undermine this - the only real mystery is why anyone on this side of the channel is still blind to it...

It may have been because BoJo said back in 2016 we would still have access to the Single Market?

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-br...on-idUKKCN0ZC1

Britain will continue to have access to the European Union’s single market despite voting to leave the bloc, leading Brexit campaigner and favorite to become the country’s next prime minister Boris Johnson said in a newspaper article on Sunday.

Originally Posted by Hugh

Likewise, the EU have always stated (since 2016) the importance of the Single Market, and would resist any efforts to undermine this - the only real mystery is why anyone on this side of the channel is still blind to it...

It may have been because BoJo said back in 2016 we would still have access to the Single Market?

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-br...on-idUKKCN0ZC1

You’re being somewhat loose with your definitions. Unintentionally I’m sure.

“Access to” can mean almost anything. WTO is access to the single market. *No* access to the single market would be a complete ban on British goods and services being sold into the EEA, which is clearly an absurd proposition that would never happen.

However even if we allow that by “access to” Boris was talking about “preferential access to” (and that’s by no means certain, because a lot of prominent Remainers in 2016 were happily using the phrase “no access to” and allowing the impression to be formed that there might be a total ban on British goods - he may simply have been responding to just such a disingenuous comment) then his statement would still have been perfectly reasonable. Every international trade deal the EU has signed gives preferential access to the single market in some form or other. There was no reason to believe the EU would demand an extensive deal or nothing.

At the end of the day, in any negotiation if the price is too high you walk away. What you don’t do is allow the other side to believe you’ll eventually sign any deal rather than no deal.

International trade deals typically rely on mutual recognition of standards. Those that go further, only insist that goods produced for export are produced to the same standard as domestic products in the target market. That is a perfectly acceptable definition of protecting the single market. What the EU is trying to do is to ensure regulatory alignment so that British businesses can’t find ways of operating more efficiently, regardless of the standard of the finished goods and regardless of whether those goods are destined for the EU or not. That is totally absurd and misses the whole point of Brexit. They are terms not imposed on anyone else.

[1andrew1]

What seems under-reported to me is that whatever is agreed or not agreed this weekend, Northern Ireland will still be subject to EU rules and the jurisdiction of the ECJ. So, we've not really got the sovereignty of the UK back.

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

What seems under-reported to me is that whatever is agreed or not agreed this weekend, Northern Ireland will still be subject to EU rules and the jurisdiction of the ECJ. So, we've not really got the sovereignty of the UK back.

Northern Ireland is a millstone that in the long run is destined to drift into the Republic. Demographics will see to it even if European politics doesn’t. And British sovereignty there was compromised years ago as a necessary condition of the peace process. There was no functioning executive in Stormont from 2017 to 2019 yet the place was run by the Northern Ireland Civil Service (which is independent of the British home civil service that, internally, treats its Scottish and Welsh operations as departments just like all the others). The British Government could have restored direct rule but it was considered too politically difficult to do. The British Government chose not to exert its authority in part of its own sovereign territory. That really ought to set the present situation in some sort of context.

It does feel like No Deal now. If this were about dramatics and last moment deal-making then you think it would be leading to 'crunch talks' between the leaders in Europe with a last-minute agreement being reached 2 am Monday morning.

Instead, it just feels like it's petering out. It's been kicked up to the negotiating teams with an extended deadline and no momentum. As if they all know it's over but just can't bring themselves to dramatically say it, maybe hoping the other side declares it over first.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Chris

Northern Ireland is a millstone that in the long run is destined to drift into the Republic. Demographics will see to it even if European politics doesn’t. And British sovereignty there was compromised years ago as a necessary condition of the peace process. There was no functioning executive in Stormont from 2017 to 2019 yet the place was run by the Northern Ireland Civil Service (which is independent of the British home civil service that, internally, treats its Scottish and Welsh operations as departments just like all the others). The British Government could have restored direct rule but it was considered too politically difficult to do. The British Government chose not to exert its authority in part of its own sovereign territory. That really ought to set the present situation in some sort of context.

A sound analysis.