Current Politics in the United Kingdom

[palo5]

Originally Posted by Brecht

Wow, the British establishment must really be afraid of Jeremy Corbyn and a genuine Labour Party...

I think you're right, and from what I read, they use any channel to make him look bad. The anti-semiticism claims are vicious and effective, not because they're true, which they aren't, but because politically it is simply not acceptable to be anti-semitic. You might as well be a kitten-strangler

But it might help to know that nearly all top Jewish leaders in Britain are politically on the right. Also, that Corbyn is critical of Israel's "treatment" of Palestinians, and Israel doesn't like it

[Meini Again]

3 Blokes In The Pub... Talk NO DEAL Brexit



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4A...ature=youtu.be


With common sense and expert insight into their personal knowledge and experience regarding borders before and after Brexit.


Learnt more from this than about 2 years of "balanced" mainstream media.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4A...ature=youtu.be

[judy84]

Some people still think if we leave with no deal we will have no trade deals with anyone. However the EU and the UK are in negotiations with the WTO concerning replication of the concessions and commitments applicable to the UK as part of the EU, an important milestone as we prepare for our departure from the EU under WTO rules.


https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-br...-idUKKBN1KE2LJ

"All Members of the WTO must have a schedule of commitments related to the terms of market access for their trading partners. In the case of Britain, the country does not have an independent schedule but as part of the European Union, it has abided by the terms of the common EU schedule. After Brexit the British will need to have an independent schedule.


What they have formally proposed is to mirror the existing EU schedule with respect to market access for goods and services. This has been rather well received and it seems unlikely that there will be much difficulty on these points with other WTO members."


https://briefingsforbrexit.com/can-t...onse-from-wto/

[judy84]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

So,You've no sensible arguments for leaving,Then ? Only abuse ? I should have known better,Brexiteers too busy crowing to offer any sensible answers..

Here is something I found:


- We stop paying a net £70billion membership fee over the next five years to Brussels. http://researchbriefings.files.parli...91/SN06091.pdf .

Every single penny of that £70billion has to be borrowed, added to our state debt of £1.7 trillion and from the first minute adding interest to that debt, a double whammy.

- We can say no to millions of low wage , low skill EU immigrants who are depressing wages of low paid British workers and creating chaos in state services such as the NHS and education .

As many of four million Brits cannot get a job or the work they would like because they are forced to compete with a “virtually unlimited pool” of migrant workers from the European Union (EU), a report has said....http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018...migrants/#bbvb

We now know there are 700,000 EU immigrant children educated in the UK at a cost of £4 billion a year. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...hools-revealed.

630000 EU nationals were given new NI numbers in the year to December, 209000 to Bulgarians and Romanians. https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...s-feb-2016.pdf

These 630,000 will bring 200,000 dependents meaning the true EU immigration figure is 830,000 https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...a-migrants.pdf They will also add to the birth rate whilst here.

MigrationWatch says Brexit would cut net immigration by 100,000 a year , http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ew-report.html .

NI data suggests the cut would be substantially higher than that and would relieve pressure on hospitals, schools, infrastructure, jobs, wages and state finances.

We now know that 75% of EU immigrants who come here to work and live would have been refused entry by the non EU immigrant point system because they are low paid workers with a median wage of £8 an hour http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/668...om-of-movement.

We know that up to 45% of EU immigrants take in work or out of work benefits https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...a-migrants.pdf and low paid EU immigrants now take £3 billion in work benefits a year, 10% of the total paid in the UK, proving they are low paid, high benefit workers http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-bri...-idUKKCN0VV241

Recent research suggests open borders immigration, most from the EU ,has increased house prices by 20%, making it almost impossible for young British people to buy a property. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...nior-minister/

We also know that 75% of all new jobs are taken by EU immigrants http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...EU-influx.html

Meanwhile it’s going to get worse through immigration to the EU from third world countries. Europe is set to absorb massive waves of migration “for the decades to come”, the EU Commission has declared.....http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018...igration-stay/

- We get out of the protectionist and bureaucratic common agricultural policy, allowing us to recoup the £50 billion opportunity cost of CAP membership that we will incur over the next five years, for example by sourcing cheaper food from the rest of the world through free trade treaties instead of applying high EU tariffs. http://openeurope.org.uk/intelligenc...vironment/cap/

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politi...-Owen-Paterson

- We get back our UK fishing grounds, 70% handed over to the EU, gaining us £15 billion over the next five years. http://www.efddgroup.eu/images/publi...tolen_Seas.pdf

- We set our own trade treaties and exit the protectionist and bureaucratic single market which costs business tens of billions of pounds a year and which have saddled us with a £89 billion annual trade deficit with the EU, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...inue-soar.html , despite proof that EU setting our trade treaties and the single market are bad for British business. http://www.civitas.org.uk/content/fi...andparadox.pdf .

- We will continue to have major foreign direct investment into the UK. The $830 billion Norwegian sovereign fund says it might invest more after Brexit http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016...ess-of-brexit/ HSBC will stay , Honda, Hitachi, Toyota, Nissan, Vauxhall will all stay here, Avon has just announced it is setting up its global HQ in the UK so it's not worried about Brexit.

- Neither are 73% of Chief Financial Officers who say Brexit will not affect their UK investment decisions http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/14/brexi...obal-cfos.html

- As for the City, there's growing consensus there that it will prosper outside the EU! Away from EU power grabs. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...dge-funds.html . Deutsche Boerse is so relaxed about potential Brexit it wants to merge with the London Stock Exchange.

- We can set our own energy policy instead of following the costly carbon emissions laws set by the EU

The EU is collapsing economically because of a dysfunctional currency, protectionism and bureaucracy, it's got deflation and minimal economic growth, why attach ourselves to,that economic carcass?

So Brexit will benefit Britain economically, business costs will fall, global business will still invest here, food prices will fall, we will get the controlled immigration we need, state spending will fall, we set our trade treaties and we are freed from single market bureaucracy.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by ********

I'm still waiting for someone to come up with some kind of workable plan for Brexit. Anyone?

It won't be Mrs May and it won't be Labour either, who are even more divided on the Leave issue than the Tories.

The obvious plan is to negotiate a free trade agreement in goods and services and make treaties with the EU covering issues where we have shared interests. There is a lot of scope for cooperation as between a sovereign country and a pooled sovereignty block. Special rules apply to some specific cases, notably aviation.

Northern Ireland border issues will depend on whether the EU thinks Britain will do all the heavy lifting to arrive at a solution - Britain won't be doing all the work. There will need to be "smart border" systems, not all of which are either technological or capital-intensive. A lot of customs work can take place at the factory of origin, removing "friction" at the border. But there most certainly will be a trade border and if the EU doesn't like it then the EU will presumably want to work towards making it as little a problem as is achievable, as this would be beneficial for them. Solutions which involve Britain not leaving the single market and/or not leaving the customs union won't fly because that would mean a non-leave Leave and there won't be any way to conceal this from the voters. Solutions such as the "backstop" won't fly because they will create a trade border on the Irish Sea, which the Unionist side will never tolerate. It's either technology and cooperation, i.e. the "smart border" or else a no-deal Brexit. A no-deal Brexit won't stop the British side leaving.

I'm waiting for the delayed squelch on Gibraltar, and to find out what nice blackmail the Kingdom of Spain might try to pull. But subject to that, I think it's simply a free trade deal. Mrs May's proposals strike me as unworkable and not even a good idea.

[jacques22]

Originally Posted by judy84

Some people still think if we leave with no deal we will have no trade deals with anyone. However the EU and the UK are in negotiations with the WTO concerning replication of the concessions and commitments applicable to the UK as part of the EU, an important milestone as we prepare for our departure from the EU under WTO rules.

You clearly don't understand the implications for the UK of trading under WTO rules, especially with the infamous 'Most Favored Nation' clause.

Read this article from the Independent (https://www.independent.co.uk/money/...7996331.html):
Food prices will go up:
"Research from KPMG UK reveals that some food items – it gives the ingredients of a fry-up as an example – could incur price increase of more than 12 per cent if the UK began trading under World Trade Organisation customs rules. That’s more than four times the rate of inflation."
In fact, the price of a lot of goods will go up in the no-deal scenario:
"And food is just one household expense where Dunt anticipates rising prices. He predicts an extra 15 per cent on the cost of cars as tariffs bite, plus rocketing energy bills because the UK would not have the legal mechanism to run its nuclear power plants if it pulled out of Euratom."
Also, the UK will face a competitive disadvantage under WTO rules:
"WTO rules state that countries cannot discriminate with tariffs – if we set 5 per cent for cars with EU, for example, it would also have to be 5 per cent for cars from other countries. If the UK continued trading with the existing EU tariff arrangements then European countries could continue importing into the UK as normal, while the country would be hit with higher tariffs on its exports."
And I'm not even talking about cancer patients:
"Worse still would be what UK consumers could no longer access if the country’s existing frameworks shuddered to a halt with no deal. Flights out of the UK require a deal, importing radioactive substances to treat prostate cancer, authorising new drugs to come to the market – all these would be impossible without legal frameworks to manage them, and the UK does not have such frameworks in place."

This article from Prospect Magazine (https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/e...absolutely-not) also explains that the free trade deals that the EU has signed are currently protecting the British economy, but once the UK trades under WTO rules, British exports will get badly hurt:
"It is equally wrong to say that most British exports are on WTO terms: 60 per cent of UK exports are to the EU and to the more than 60 countries with which the EU has FTAs. Some FTAs are with small economies and free relatively little trade. But others, particularly the one with South Korea and those signed recently with Japan, Canada and Singapore, provide for much deeper and wider liberalisation. Pulling out of them would hit some British trade hard. For instance, South Korea’s tariff on scotch whiskey, Britain’s biggest export there, would jump immediately from zero to 20 per cent."
Also the no-deal scenario will add red tape and introduce compliance costs that will hurt British trade:
" But tariffs are only half the story. A no-deal Brexit would also require UK exporters to struggle with a vast and complex new bureaucratic array of regulations and inspections to ensure that they meet EU standards. For many, the cost of compliance would be far higher than the cost of tariffs."

Originally Posted by judy84

Here is something I found:
- We stop paying a net £70billion membership fee over the next five years to Brussels. http://researchbriefings.files.parli...91/SN06091.pdf .

Every single penny of that £70billion has to be borrowed, added to our state debt of £1.7 trillion and from the first minute adding interest to that debt, a double whammy.

That membership fee is peanuts compared to the benefits enjoyed by the British economy.
The UK will have to pay much more than that to make up for the fall in the GDP. Here are the government's estimates (https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-study-finds): under the Norway scenario, the UK's additional net borrowing will be £17 billion a year; under the Canada scenario, that additional net borrowing will reach £57 billion a year; under the no-deal scenario (WTO rules), it will jump to £81 billion a year. And if ever the EU accepts May's bespoke deal, the additional net borrowing will still be £40 billion a year.

Originally Posted by judy84

- We can say no to millions of low wage, low skill EU immigrants who are depressing wages of low paid British workers and creating chaos in state services such as the NHS and education.

As many of four million Brits cannot get a job or the work they would like because they are forced to compete with a “virtually unlimited pool” of migrant workers from the European Union (EU), a report has said....http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018...migrants/#bbvb

UKIP would be proud of your rant about immigration. It's very Trumpian from you to see immigrants as the enemy. You couldn't say anything positive about them. You can't even see that they contribute a lot to the British economy and society.
Some of those EU expats earn low salaries, but why don't you blame the greedy British bosses then?
And it's not true that all those EU expats are low-skill workers. Some of them are fruit-pickers or waiters in restaurants, but many of them have high-skill jobs: engineers, analysts, doctors, teachers, managing directors.
You also have to ask yourself why there's a demand for low-skill and high-skill jobs that the UK population can't meet. A lot of British people don't want to perform those exhausting poorly paid jobs (fruit pickers, nurses, waiters, builders). And there are not enough British schools or universities that can train a decent number of doctors, engineers and other high-skill jobs.

Originally Posted by judy84

- We set our own trade treaties and exit the protectionist and bureaucratic single market which costs business tens of billions of pounds a year and which have saddled us with a £89 billion annual trade deficit with the EU, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...inue-soar.html , despite proof that EU setting our trade treaties and the single market are bad for British business. http://www.civitas.org.uk/content/fi...andparadox.pdf .

See above. Any deal (Norway, Canada, WTO) will cost you more than EU membership. The government even published a study which showed that the UK's GDP will fall by 2% over a 15-year period under the Norway scenario; by 5% under the Canada scenario; and by 8% under the WTO scenario.

Originally Posted by judy84

- We will continue to have major foreign direct investment into the UK. The $830 billion Norwegian sovereign fund says it might invest more after Brexit http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016...ess-of-brexit/ HSBC will stay, Honda, Hitachi, Toyota, Nissan, Vauxhall will all stay here, Avon has just announced it is setting up its global HQ in the UK so it's not worried about Brexit.

You are delusional. HSBC is moving jobs to Paris. Some banks are still waiting to make a decision, but a lot of banks are already relocating to Europe. Some 20 banks have already committed to Frankfurt (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-a8294651.html). And dozens of banks will move to Paris, Dublin, Frankfurt or even Madrid (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-brexit-bankers/).
You mention Avon, but they decided to relocate from the US to Britain several months before the referendum, and not recently.
You should definitely take off your rose-tinted glasses. Car makers are still waiting to make a decision but they haven't committed to staying in the UK. In fact, they have threatened to leave the UK if they don’t have the same facilities to export to Europe after Brexit:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-new...out-of-britain
Vauxhall even announced it will cut jobs:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...s-car-industry

Originally Posted by judy84

The EU is collapsing economically because of a dysfunctional currency, protectionism and bureaucracy, it's got deflation and minimal economic growth, why attach ourselves to,that economic carcass?

Before the referendum, the UK had a higher growth rate than the Eurozone. Since the referendum, it's the opposite: the Eurozone is enjoying a higher growth rate than the UK.

Originally Posted by judy84

So Brexit will benefit Britain economically, business costs will fall, global business will still invest here, food prices will fall, we will get the controlled immigration we need, state spending will fall, we set our trade treaties and we are freed from single market bureaucracy.

You are in complete denial. Even a Brexiter like Rees-Mogg said it might take 50 years before the British people can see the benefits of Brexit. At least, he has the honesty to implicitly acknowledge that Brexit is an ideological project that will hurt the economy, while you think a Brexit UK will flourish economically. Have cake and eat it...

[seany65]

Quote:
Originally Posted by seany65 View Post
Hmmm. It seems to me that your 2 options means the leavers who don't want the deal will have their votes ignored altogether.

Originally Posted by palo5

They're used to that on the island. They have a FPTP electoral system where half the votes don't count in elections

Sorry to be cynical, but it's true

Palo, what I trying to say was "So the ballot paper won't have an option that those who don't want to accept the deal but still want to leave will be able to put their "X" in so they won't be really able to vote."



I've been wondering what sort of deal the UK had with the EEC/EU before we joined. Anyone know?

[jacques22]

Originally Posted by seany65

I've been wondering what sort of deal the UK had with the EEC/EU before we joined. Anyone know?

It was either GATT (i.e. today's WTO) or bilateral free trade agreements. For instance, the UK and Ireland signed a FTA in 1965 (https://www.dfa.ie/irish-embassy/gre...ireland-uk-eu/).
Before joining the EEC, the UK was a member of EFTA with Norway, Switzerland and other countries (http://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/factsheet-on-timeline/). Because EFTA was less competitive than the EEC, the UK decided to apply for the EEC and leave EFTA.
The irony today is that going back to EFTA either through the Norway scenario or the Switzerland scenario (i.e. a soft Brexit) would be considered a betrayal of the referendum by hardliners like Farage, Rees-Mogg, and Jonhson.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by ********

You mean exacrtly like the common market and customs union we already have?

Complete with the free movement of labour no doubt? Thousands of our own citizens are homeless, yet we have the EU wanting to sue us for refusing to grant immediate and automatic access to social housing to people who have never even visited this country before. No; I don't mean "exactly like the common market and customs union we already have."

Originally Posted by ********

Because to have say a free trade deal on services we are going to have to agree to common rules. It's no good if companies can use the UK as a tax haven or if our financial rules allow for stuff that is illegal in the EU. It wouldn't be fair aisde from anything else.

There are common rules on trade in services anyway, notably on data protection and anti-money laundering. These rules are far more international than only the EU and Britain conforms to them.

In order for any discriminatory actions against Great Britain to be "fair" (as you put it), the self same standards should also apply to remaining EU members - including the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg. If the standards are not the same and Britain is singled out for punishment for behaviours which other EU members are allowed to profit from unchallenged, then that is economic warfare and Britain should retaliate. I can think of several ways to retaliate which would hurt the EU a lot. So I would advise the EU to think long and hard. "Fair" works in both directions.

Originally Posted by ********

Where do these unicorns come from? Who will be responsible for the years of development and huge costs involved in the inevitable failure of a massive government IT system?

If I am being completely honest, I don't actually care. We are leaving. I would like to be as helpful as humanly possible on maintaining cross border trade with the Irish Republic and I am sure that technological arrangements are part of the solution. So is cooperation between border and police agencies and allowing inspection and sealing of vehicles before they even set off, and when they arrive at the delivery end, in order to avoid queues at the border itself. But I personally won't be diverted from asserting Britain's right to self determination and in the last analysis, should the Good Friday Agreement be an immovable obstacle to Britain governing herself, then IMHO that will mean the Good Friday Agreement has got to go. I hope we can come to a practical arrangement on this issue but I am prepared to go the whole way if need be.

Originally Posted by ********

And if this is indeed a good solution why hasn't any other country done it? Why have Norway and Sweden been unable to eliminate their physical border checks and delays if all they had to do was invent a "smart border"?

See above.

Originally Posted by ********

Presumably they will get whatever kind of border Northern Ireland gets. Since their economy is 90% financial services and financial services aren't even in May's failed Chequers plan they are basically fucked.

Mrs May's Chequers Plan is a pack of festering shit.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

I can think of several ways to retaliate which would hurt the EU a lot. So I would advise the EU to think long and hard. "Fair" works in both directions

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