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I am sure that any deal the UK enters into with the US will benefit both sides, or else a deal won't be struck at all. After all, we can still trade with the US without a trade deal.
Doesn't look like trading with the US with or without a trade deal will be particularly easy given this:
Conservative Conference has the diarrhea dial straight up to 11 with the bovine excreta being spouted.
Michael Gove informs we can sell pigs' ears to the Far East once we've left the EU as we'll no longer need to use ear tags on pigs. Spoiler alert: we don't now, this is either ignorance or a lie.
Andrea Leadsom informs the UK's Free Trade Agreement with the EU will have 'zero tariffs and zero non-tariff barriers' so presumably we're remaining in the EU, joining the Schengen Area and joining the Euro.
Regarding the Anglosphere there seem few indications they would be any more accommodating of us than anyone else - it's very much self first.
Quote:
There are three main issues: the division of agricultural import quotas and of farm subsidy rights and - for Britain - continued membership of the WTO’s government procurement agreement, which it is not a member of in its own right.
The thorniest is the planned sharing-out of import quotas, which has already been rejected by the United States, Argentina, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, Thailand and Uruguay.
In a letter first published by the Financial Times, their representatives at the WTO said they would not accept the plan to split those quotas on the basis of historical averages.
They want to keep the flexibility they enjoy now, suggesting Britain should duplicate the EU import quotas, doubling their potential exports into the region.
A British official called their letter a negotiating tactic and an attempt to put a shot across the bows of the British-EU offer before it went to the wider WTO membership.
Anyone who claimed this would be easy, and there were plenty, were quite wrong to dismiss concerns from those who said our move to WTO would provide other nations leverage on us.
---------- Post added at 11:49 ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 ----------
Looks like Germany's industries are preparing for a disorganised crash out of the UK from the EU without any trade deal or transition period.
At least someone is preparing for it. Our Government won't even let us see their impact assessments let alone any indication of preparation.
BERLIN (Reuters) - German firms active in Britain should make provisions now for a “very hard Brexit”, Germany’s biggest industry group said on Thursday, because the government in London does not know what it wants.
The Federation of German Industries (BDI) said British Prime Minister Theresa May’s government lacked a clear strategy on how to exit the European Union following last year’s referendum.
“After four rounds of negotiations, German industry looks with concern at the progress of the Brexit negotiations,” BDI Managing Director Joachim Lang told reporters in Berlin. “The British government is lacking a clear concept despite talking a lot.”
To prepare for a disruptive British departure from the EU, the BDI said it had set up a task force including major companies, which trains-to-turbines group Siemens (SIEGn.DE) said it was part of.
So much for Germany's EU hegemony and their businesses running the show.
Quote:
Even the Germans are making quiet overtures to us about the need for a nice, friendly trade deal.
They are all scared stiff of two things. Firstly, we buy a lot more from the EU than we sell.
The European countries depend upon us as a huge market for their goods. They don’t want that jeopardised under any conditions. Especially not the Germans.
Regarding the Anglosphere there seem few indications they would be any more accommodating of us than anyone else - it's very much self first.
Anyone who claimed this would be easy, and there were plenty, were quite wrong to dismiss concerns from those who said our move to WTO would provide other nations leverage on us.
---------- Post added at 11:49 ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 ----------
Looks like Germany's industries are preparing for a disorganised crash out of the UK from the EU without any trade deal or transition period.
At least someone is preparing for it. Our Government won't even let us see their impact assessments let alone any indication of preparation.
News and rant alert - kept in a spoiler to ensure echo chamber integrity for some.
Spoiler:
So France and Germany have shut down Theresa May's idea of a transition. Barnier stated before the Florence speech that the options were remaining in the EU for longer than the Article 50 period while we worked out what we wanted, then having transition to that new agreement, or a transition when an agreement has already been achieved. What was not on the table was what Theresa May asked for - leaving the EU in March 2019 and keeping the beneficial parts without some of the obligations in return for money.
Germany and France have dashed British hopes of fast-tracking talks on a two-year post-Brexit transition deal, insisting that the UK’s EU divorce bill be resolved first.
British officials had hoped that EU leaders would jump-start negotiations at a high-profile Brussels summit in two weeks by approving the opening of talks on a transition period after Britain’s exit in 2019, which Theresa May proposed in her Florence address last month.
But according to European diplomats, a Germany-led group of EU countries has demanded more clarity on the long-term financial commitments Britain will honour. The UK insists it will only do this once the shape of its future relationship with the EU is clear, including a transition period.
Berlin’s tough stance will be of particular concern to London, coming just a week after Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, met Mrs May to discuss Brexit and her Florence speech, which offered to use transition payments to cover an EU budget shortfall of at least €20bn.
The setback comes amid further signs that post-Florence hopes of smoother Brexit sailing are beginning to fade.
This puts at an end the idea that we can buy concessions. The other two of the big 3 economies basically just told us that the sequencing of talks isn't negotiable - financial and other arrangements first then discussion on future relationship, including transition. May and others' hopes of going directly to EU nations just went up in flames - they're more hawkish on us than the EU institutions.
As a reminder to those like Dan Hannan who think fawning over the Anglosphere will achieve anything the United States have reminded us that it's America First, not as collateral damage to a trade dispute between them and Canada but directly.
The Trump administration has joined a group of countries objecting to a deal between the UK and EU to divide valuable agricultural import quotas, in a sign of how the US and others plan to use Brexit to force the UK to further open its sensitive market for farm products.
President Donald Trump has been one of the most prominent international backers of Brexit and has vowed quickly to negotiate a “beautiful trade deal” with the UK after it leaves the EU.
But his administration’s objection to a preliminary plan, agreed to by Brussels and London over how to split the EU’s existing “tariff rate quotas” under World Trade Organisation rules after the UK assumes its own WTO obligations following Brexit, illustrates how Washington is likely to drive a hard bargain.
The good news of course for some here is that the odds of the UK falling out of the EU without a deal just went up. The bad news for everyone else and, if they ever wake up from their delusion, them, is that sovereignty won't compensate for the economic hit. A wide range figure on the hit of 'no deal' puts it at £40-80 billion a year, with the type of Brexit that would make Jacob Rees-Mogg cry over his shrine to the British Empire and spouting nonsense in the Commons in Latin costing £10-40 billion.
We as a nation have made a complete and utter <expletive> up of this. We went into a negotiation with no realistic idea of what we wanted, just a bunch of vague and unrealistic aspirations.
Article 50 shouldn't have been triggered until at least the Government had some clue what they wanted at the end of the two years; further time was wasted with an unnecessary election and yet more time after that vote as various Tories consider their Machiavellian masterplans.
Tories can't even agree on what's going on. Nadine Dorres reckons toppling Theresa May is a remainers plot, in total ignorance of that the Conservative Party membership's demographics are such that they are likely to go with the hardest and most delusional Brexiteer on offer.
I said a while ago that the UK should never have joined the EU, we weren't a great fit, and should've stayed in EFTA and the EEA. I still hold to that, however given the fantastic job we're making of leaving the EU I think I would be far more comfortable with abandoning this whole thing until we get our act together at home.
No-one considered the EU that much of a priority besides some members of the Conservative Party in 2014, it's now a bitterly divisive issue that's dominated UK politics for over a year, opened up wounds in the Conservative Party even wider, and empowered that champion of democracy Aaron Banks and his crew of propagandists that make Breitbart look like a serious, sober broadsheet.
I haven't a clue what the solutions are. By gearing a year of politicking towards the more extreme end of the debate the Conservatives have excluded a bunch of reasonable positions that would've been able to command majority support from the UK.
By behaving like Goebbels for a year they've taken a debate that was already of a pretty low standard and ensured it's subterranean and dominated by the self-interested in the Conservative Party and various people following the Trump model - spout a load of bovine excreta and attack your detractors if they call you on it. Is it any wonder the country can't get on board with the whole thing when views are this extreme?
The following from YouGov flows smoothly into that even though it makes little sense given Corbyn is as Brexit horny as many Tories, just for different reasons as much as it prevents them shredding social and other protections it prevents him nationalising everything.
Some of the poor and working classes complained that no-one was listening to them, felt left behind, then say they are fine with being made poorer if it means they get their way. Some of the elderly complain about the country going to the dogs then say they are fine degrading it further by making us poorer. I appreciate that things were harder in their day but aren't people supposed to want better for the next generation rather than not caring less about it as long as they get their way because they're always right?
If this is accurate the attitude of the 61% is alarming, and comprehensively puts paid to the idea they were voting for the good of the country or at very least the concept of empathy for those not closely connected to them. The attitude of the 39% fine even if their vote impacted them or those close to them downright bizarre. I can't fathom the motivations of someone who votes to leave something they don't understand, hardly anyone does, for reasons they can't elucidate, just listen to callers to James O'Brien on LBC failing to do so, and claims to be fine with them or someone close to them becoming unemployed as a result.
It puts into sharp focus the stubborn refusal of many, on both sides of the debate, to even contemplate the idea that they may be wrong. I have no idea when we became so hubristic or indeed if we were always this way.
The history books are going to have a lot of fun with this.
News and rant alert - kept in a spoiler to ensure echo chamber integrity for some.
Spoiler:
So France and Germany have shut down Theresa May's idea of a transition. Barnier stated before the Florence speech that the options were remaining in the EU for longer than the Article 50 period while we worked out what we wanted, then having transition to that new agreement, or a transition when an agreement has already been achieved. What was not on the table was what Theresa May asked for - leaving the EU in March 2019 and keeping the beneficial parts without some of the obligations in return for money.
This puts at an end the idea that we can buy concessions. The other two of the big 3 economies basically just told us that the sequencing of talks isn't negotiable - financial and other arrangements first then discussion on future relationship, including transition. May and others' hopes of going directly to EU nations just went up in flames - they're more hawkish on us than the EU institutions.
As a reminder to those like Dan Hannan who think fawning over the Anglosphere will achieve anything the United States have reminded us that it's America First, not as collateral damage to a trade dispute between them and Canada but directly.
The good news of course for some here is that the odds of the UK falling out of the EU without a deal just went up. The bad news for everyone else and, if they ever wake up from their delusion, them, is that sovereignty won't compensate for the economic hit. A wide range figure on the hit of 'no deal' puts it at £40-80 billion a year, with the type of Brexit that would make Jacob Rees-Mogg cry over his shrine to the British Empire and spouting nonsense in the Commons in Latin costing £10-40 billion.
We as a nation have made a complete and utter <expletive> up of this. We went into a negotiation with no realistic idea of what we wanted, just a bunch of vague and unrealistic aspirations.
Article 50 shouldn't have been triggered until at least the Government had some clue what they wanted at the end of the two years; further time was wasted with an unnecessary election and yet more time after that vote as various Tories consider their Machiavellian masterplans.
Tories can't even agree on what's going on. Nadine Dorres reckons toppling Theresa May is a remainers plot, in total ignorance of that the Conservative Party membership's demographics are such that they are likely to go with the hardest and most delusional Brexiteer on offer.
I said a while ago that the UK should never have joined the EU, we weren't a great fit, and should've stayed in EFTA and the EEA. I still hold to that, however given the fantastic job we're making of leaving the EU I think I would be far more comfortable with abandoning this whole thing until we get our act together at home.
No-one considered the EU that much of a priority besides some members of the Conservative Party in 2014, it's now a bitterly divisive issue that's dominated UK politics for over a year, opened up wounds in the Conservative Party even wider, and empowered that champion of democracy Aaron Banks and his crew of propagandists that make Breitbart look like a serious, sober broadsheet.
I haven't a clue what the solutions are. By gearing a year of politicking towards the more extreme end of the debate the Conservatives have excluded a bunch of reasonable positions that would've been able to command majority support from the UK.
By behaving like Goebbels for a year they've taken a debate that was already of a pretty low standard and ensured it's subterranean and dominated by the self-interested in the Conservative Party and various people following the Trump model - spout a load of bovine excreta and attack your detractors if they call you on it. Is it any wonder the country can't get on board with the whole thing when views are this extreme?
The following from YouGov flows smoothly into that even though it makes little sense given Corbyn is as Brexit horny as many Tories, just for different reasons as much as it prevents them shredding social and other protections it prevents him nationalising everything.
Some of the poor and working classes complained that no-one was listening to them, felt left behind, then say they are fine with being made poorer if it means they get their way. Some of the elderly complain about the country going to the dogs then say they are fine degrading it further by making us poorer. I appreciate that things were harder in their day but aren't people supposed to want better for the next generation rather than not caring less about it as long as they get their way because they're always right?
If this is accurate the attitude of the 61% is alarming, and comprehensively puts paid to the idea they were voting for the good of the country or at very least the concept of empathy for those not closely connected to them. The attitude of the 39% fine even if their vote impacted them or those close to them downright bizarre. I can't fathom the motivations of someone who votes to leave something they don't understand, hardly anyone does, for reasons they can't elucidate, just listen to callers to James O'Brien on LBC failing to do so, and claims to be fine with them or someone close to them becoming unemployed as a result.
It puts into sharp focus the stubborn refusal of many, on both sides of the debate, to even contemplate the idea that they may be wrong. I have no idea when we became so hubristic or indeed if we were always this way.
The history books are going to have a lot of fun with this.
The EU is interested in one thing and one thing only ££££££ you give them plenty of that you can do whatever you want
Think they'd prefer Euro's, they'll soon be worth more !
The Maybot doesn't know whether to go for Hard or soft Brexit. Whichever way shes goes, she tearing her party apart which might be the only good outcome from Brexit. She changes from day to day appease whoever is shouting loudest today. She's weak and the EU know it. Maybe they have prepared for a 'no deal' more than we have. See they are starting to negotiate with the Labour party, wonder why ?
The EU is interested in one thing and one thing only ££££££ you give them plenty of that you can do whatever you want
For better or worse I've not seen any evidence that any amount of money would progress these talks alone, let alone the amounts that Theresa May and her party have constrained the UK to offering with their rhetoric.
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Re: Brexit discussion
First off, I'm going to stop using the terms Breixiteers & Bremoaners, I'm going to says Winners and Losers.
I nearly through my radio across the room to day listening to a brexit discussion, it was more about the losers trying to get the whole thing cancelled, and still moaning about not getting the vote we wanted.
Well tough titty the losers lost we are leaving.
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First off, I'm going to stop using the terms Breixiteers & Bremoaners, I'm going to says Winners and Losers.
I nearly through my radio across the room to day listening to a brexit discussion, it was more about the losers trying to get the whole thing cancelled, and still moaning about not getting the vote we wanted.
Well tough titty the losers lost we are leaving.
This post sums up why this country is screwed. Winners and Losers ? We're all on the same side, we all win or we all lose.
This post sums up why this country is screwed. Winners and Losers ? We're all on the same side, we all win or we all lose.
We're all in this together. I've yet to see one credible report that suggests anyone will gain from Brexit, and that goes for the EU 27 countries as well. It's a case of damage limitation.