Current Politics in the United Kingdom

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

Brave words, my friend. But I don't think you realize how much you've downscaled yourself. You were a member of the $20 trillion league, but soon no longer

Barking at the EU will do you as much good as threatening the US or China. On your own, you don't have the resources or the clout

Not my own preferred choice I assure you. But the EU would miss a lot if we withdrew cooperation. And if it becomes apparent that we are to be victimised for leaving, we won't submit to it meekly. There would be no winners in such a breakdown of relationships, but on the plus side we will have a lot of clarity in knowing who our friends and enemies really are - that is extremely valuable to know.

I am not worried about not being a super-power. But the world is a big place and the EU is not all the world there is. Neither is it wise or sensible for the EU to alienate us. Sooner or later, people will realise how serious this is for the EU as well, to be so badly at variance with an important neighbour; which in the future Britain will continue to be, seen from the EU side of the water. The punishment Brexit idea is not a good one.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by ********

So your plan is to have an open border with Ireland and for other ports like Dover to be as frictionless as possible... But also need visas to cross them.

I think I may have found a flaw in your grand scheme.

Yes to free trade. No to free movement of labour. Britain and Ireland have been in a Common Travel Area since 1921. Irish citizens will continue to come and go and we trust that British citizens can come and go in Ireland. I need a passport to go to Europe now and maybe I will need a visa, though we didn't need a Visa to go to France even before 1973 because we had a treaty. Maybe we can have a treaty again, perhaps, if our friends in the EU aren't looking to be awkward for the sake of it. Irish citizens have always had the automatic right to work here, but other EU citizens haven't, and that is what I want to restore.

Originally Posted by ********

Untrue. Look at how US companies have been having a shit-fit over GDPR, for example. The EU rules are much stronger than most of the world.

If the UK wants to continue to offer services as it does today then it will have to sign up to things like GDPR and ECHR. Things that the government promised to get rid off post-Brexit.

If we stick with that stuff then we have become rule-takers with no say in them. Sign here or face financial ruin.

As I remember this, we signed our EU rules into British law as part of the separation legislation. This is an extremely simple pragmatic step, not to create change for change's sake. Therefore GDPR is going to continue after we leave. Whether we emulate future EU changes on data protection will be up to us; but might be covered in a possible Brexit agreement with the EU involving free trade in services if both parties agree. As for being rule takers with no say, that's where we are now. We will have more say as a separate power because the EU will not be in authority over us, but will rather need to seek our agreement.

I presume you mean the ECJ rather than the ECHR? We are leaving the EU, not leaving the Council of Europe.

Originally Posted by ********

Describe how the EU is being discriminatory please. Their position is that the rules must apply to everyone equally, for the integrity of the single market.

Actually Moko, it is you who is being discriminatory with all this talk about what what naughty bad criminals we British are, who mustn't be allowed to have free trade in services with the EU knights in shining armour. I merely point out that the pot would be calling the kettle black if the EU were to emulate your decidedly anti-British propagandist argument. I can quite see that the Netherlands and Ireland, Luxembourg and France would see us as competition in this regard. Singling us out for punitive measures would be extremely hypocritical unless there is going to be a broad initiative in which everyone has to reform - and to be quite frank, I don't have confidence that Holland, Luxembourg, Ireland and France would honour such a deal, and I think we would be cleaning up our act and watching the dirty money go to the EU instead.

I reckon we should address tax evasion here anyway. One thing we might do, in the event of a punishment Brexit, could be to make our transfer pricing rules much stronger, so that "licence fees", "management charges" and similar devices used to walk profit out of the UK without it being taxed are subjected to a 20% withholding tax.

Originally Posted by ********

I'd be okay with that if you were just punishing yourself. If you couldn't get a doctor in a year's time I wouldn't care, what bothers me is that I can't get one either.

Ah yes, Project Fear again. Nothing whatsoever to do with anything which might really happen.

Originally Posted by ********

It's a shame the ballot was anonymous because now there is no way to punish the guilty.

Slight self-betrayal going on here, methinks. I and others such as myself are to be punished for daring to disagree with you.

Originally Posted by ********

It's also rather shameful that the people supporting Brexit have no plan, no practical solutions to any of this. Talk about irresponsible and reckless.

Not quite as shameful as the people who deceived and betrayed us into entering this spiders web from which we are now extricating ourselves. We were told it was a Common Market. We never were asked for permission to subordinate our country to a Federal Europe and we have seized our chance to say no to that project. It would have been irresponsible and reckless not to do so.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

f it becomes apparent that we are to be victimised for leaving

No one's victimising you. But you will have to learn that a spiteful attitude towards players many times your size is not a game you can win. To make progress anywhere, you will need co-operation and the right spirit, especially with all those trade deals that are supposed to appear from somewhere

Btw, in case you thought being shut out of Galileo and other projects is "victimisation", it isn't. It's because you aren't subject to EU law and court oversight, and can't be given top level access to sensitive information. Trust does not come into it

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

No one's victimising you. But you will have to learn that a spiteful attitude towards players many times your size is not a game you can win. To make progress anywhere, you will need co-operation and the right spirit, especially with all those trade deals that are supposed to appear from somewhere

Btw, in case you thought being shut out of Galileo and other projects is "victimisation", it isn't. It's because you aren't subject to EU law and court oversight, and can't be given top level access to sensitive information. Trust does not come into it

As I seem to remember saying previously, the point is whether or not adverse measures are necessary and rational. Where we are talking about excluding Britain from this or that because we are such naughty bad people, that fails the test of necessary and rational. If others show a spiteful and vindictive attitude to us, it becomes necessary and rational that we will do the same in return - no different in principle to the EU's totally justified counter-action against idiotic tariffs introduced by President Trump.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

If others show a spiteful and vindictive attitude to us, it becomes necessary and rational that we will do the same in return - no different in principle to the EU's totally justified counter-action against idiotic tariffs introduced by President Trump.

You have the wrong idea. No one is vindictive or spiteful towards you. You'll just have to learn you're a third country, not a Member, and you won't get favors anymore

Btw, the EU can take counter-action against the US because it has equivalent economic firepower, just like China. Have you thought of the difference in scale between them and the UK?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

You have the wrong idea. No one is vindictive or spiteful towards you. You'll just have to learn you're a third country, not a Member, and you won't get favors anymore

Btw, the EU can take counter-action against the US because it has equivalent economic firepower, just like China. Have you thought of the difference in scale between them and the UK?

So far Britain has not been a primary target of US tariffs, partly because our manufacturing base is not all that big - something we need to address. Our departure does weaken the EU in this regard and it may be that strategic cooperation against American abuse of power, such as the Helms-Burton Act, will be a shared interest into the future - time will tell.

[Wendigo]

Originally Posted by ********

By the way, even arch Brexiteers are calling for a second referendum:

https://youtu.be/B3rX4nJ0snc

Nice to see that you fell for that one, if you had taken time to read the comments underneath

"Jon Moore, by uploading this edited section of Rees-Mogg's speech, you merely expose what a desperate tosser you are."

"This was recorded years before the second referendum in 2016. Cameron did indeed renegotiate our membership and got few concessions for his trouble before it was held"

"Well filleted indeed. 9 seconds from a speech of probably at least 4 minutes. I noticed he said "a second referendum after the renegotiation" i.e. 1st referendum to decide whether to re-negotiate. There is no context in this video because it has had some Open Britain-style editing"

I would have said it was more like Little Britain

"Very deviously edited to exclude the true context in which he spoke to create fake news. Defo remoaners behind this!" only a quote, not MY words

Those are just the listed quotes, not my thoughts, my thoughts are that I just think some people are desperately sad

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by ********

Say a British truck driver wants to deliver some stuff to Germany. They need to right to travel through multiple EU countries and to work in those countries. They need a truck that meets EU standards. When in the EU they need to work to EU rules on working time and break periods, including the driving time they did in the UK before arriving.

This is a bit more complicated than going on holiday to France. In order to maintain that level of access and keep things like car manufacturing going in the UK we will have to accept all those EU rules. Even if they are not part of our laws, in practical terms all the haulage companies will have to work to them anyway.

So rather than leaving and having no say, we should stay in and take control of those regulations that will govern our lives anyway.

It is of course reasonable that British haulage operators who operate in Europe will have to operate to EU standards. The same goes the other way round. Equally, EU operators will meet our standards if they want to operate here. For example, the UK wanted to make seat belts mandatory on passenger coaches after some grisly accidents in which belts would have saved lives, and the proposal was intransigently vetoed by the Greek government, who didn't want the expense for their own economy and didn't care about the safety issue. When we leave, we can make seat belts mandatory for coaches operating in UK traffic and the Greeks will have to lump it.

Originally Posted by ********

While technically true, it will be very difficult for services to sell into the EU if we don't have GDPR and keep up to date with whatever changes are made to it. The EU won't compromise on that, they haven't done so for anyone else, and frankly why should then when the net effect will be moving lucrative services from teh UK to the EU?

If compliance with EU financial regulations is actually the issue, then the UK is compliant already and can continue to be so. But somehow I don't think this is the issue. I think we are suffering from Francois Hollande Disease.

Originally Posted by ********

That's really the point about "taking back control". I can "take back control" of my finances, stop paying the bank a thousand pounds a month and spend it on myself... But if I don't trade that bit of control for the benefit of having a mortage and a house to live in, I'll be a lot worse off.



Okay, counter example. Say the EU decides that goods sold to the UK can have a 0% VAT rate, and financial services don't need to be regulated they can just do what they like with UK customers. That will give their companies a massive advantage over British ones.

What should we do about that? We could tear up our free trade deal and throw some tariffs in to level the playing field perhaps.

If necessary, then yes; we would impose tariffs to counter unfair competition. But any financial services traded here would be regulated here. There is no connotation that free trade is also unregulated trade - except in the minds of the scum authors of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership proposal.

Originally Posted by ********

A feature of any free trade deal is that rules are agreed to create a level playing field that is fair to both sides. Even on WTO rules there are some limits to what you can get away with, and counties that do get silly can face penalties such as the other country being allowed to ignore their intelectual property rights and patents.

I have no problems with this in principle.

Originally Posted by ********

Yeah... About that. Gibraltar would prefer we didn't, because at the moment they base their economy on dodgy financial dealings and can get away with it because they are in the EU and the UK can simply veto any investigation and punishment. The moment we are out... And they are not the only ones.

Will this also apply to all the other EU member countries? Or for that matter, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra and the Vatican? If yes, then fair enough. If no, then it's retaliation-time.

Originally Posted by ********

By the way, even arch Brexiteers are calling for a second referendum:

https://youtu.be/B3rX4nJ0snc

Jacob Rees-Mogg is rather like John Redwood without the personality and charisma. But let him call for a second referendum if he so chooses. But it appears that this clip is doctored in any case.

The practicalities are against a second referendum - it isn't going to happen. A general election is more likely.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Will this also apply to all the other EU member countries? Or for that matter, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra and the Vatican? If yes, then fair enough. If no, then it's retaliation-time

Don't know if I understand you right, but unless there's a deal to the contrary, Gibraltar will not be able to sell financial services in the EU. From what I've read, Gibraltar knows this, and says it will sell its services elsewhere. So what is there to retaliate against, and who are you angry with?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

Don't know if I understand you right, but unless there's a deal to the contrary, Gibraltar will not be able to sell financial services in the EU. From what I've read, Gibraltar knows this, and says it will sell its services elsewhere. So what is there to retaliate against, and who are you angry with?

Who says I'm angry?