Brexit, gimme a break.

[Workingman]

The latest from the UK is that Ministers have agreed that there will be a transnational period post Brexit: has anyone asked the EU about this? Is this what we voted for?

The next from the UK is that there will still be a temporary customs union to avoid the NI problem. What do the EU think, they are involved, after all? Is this what we voted for?

And we might have to go to WTO rules. Oh dear, the EU is already there before us in all the big markets

Damn.

[AliasAggers]

I'm getting tired of all this talking about Brexit. Why don't they just get on with it?

It makes me wish that we had someone like Trump here.

[Suff]

WM the news I'm reading is the following:

1. There will be no customs union after the end of A50 in 2019 and the UK will be free to pursue any trade deals we want. This is supported by all senior ministers including Hammond.

2. There will be a passport union between Ireland and the UK, for Irish citizens only. This is exactly the same as the Nordics passport Union before Sweden and Denmark joined Schengen. The upshot of the Nordics passport union, when Denmark and Sweden went Schengen, was that Iceland and Norway had a choice to either leave the passport union or have Schengen extended to include them. In the end Schengen was modified to include non EU members.

This has an immediate short term benefit for Ireland in that they don't lose the UK borders access. But a long term negative impact in that they can never join Schengen unless they leave the UK passport Union.

3. There will be a transition period of up to 3 years post Brexit. NOT a customs union transition, but a situation similar to the Swiss one where free movement of people continues but reduces but open markets cease. Probably this will also include the banking passporting arrangement which will give 3 years for the banks to sort themselves out after Brexit when they know the lie of the land.

Whether the EU like this or not, this is the UK stating it's case. Notably the EU has not, yet, made any concrete proposition beyond demanding that the UK sign itself up to unspecified and unknown sums of money as a "separation bill" before the EU will talk about anything else and also the demand that all EU citizens in currently in the UK and who may come to the UK during the Brexit negotiations AND their families; are granted the same rights as UK citizens for the REST OF THEIR LIVES, regardless of whether they leave the UK for a protracted period or not.

The UK, unsurprisingly is sticking up the middle finger to this and saying "try again and start being reasonable".

As far as I'm concerned, the UK government is doing everything and more, to protect the UK citizens, the Good Friday accord, UK trade and business and the rights of UK citizens in the EU.

The EU, on the other hand, as far as I'm concerned, are coming over as a bunch of belligerents; utterly determined to run roughshod over the UK as they have done for the last 40 odd years.

Finally the EU is getting the response they should have got when we joined the EEC. "Thanks but no thanks at that price".

As far as I'm concerned the Remoaner Press are complicit in driving the value of the pound through the floor. Which, I believe, is a good thing as it will cause much greater inflation and force the BOE to raise rates whether they want to or not.

Aggers, the UK cannot simple "Get on with it" in terms of Brexit. The UK has a team of nearly 100 negotiators and is producing extensive material for the EU to consider. The UK material, produced by our ~100 negotiators, is being taken and translated into 26 other languages then circulated to 27 other countries, by 45 EU staff. This takes a lot of time and the meetings are being scheduled to accommodate this.

The UK could run a LOT faster than the EU but we are chained to their snail like processes.

The only way the UK could run ahead would be to simply block all EU negotiations, unilaterally break with the EU and close the borders. This would be in nobody's interests and would, in the short term, do a huge amount of damage to the UK businesses and UK citizens who live around the EU.

Whilst this is frustrating in the extreme, the UK team is doing a really good job. The press, as they have been doing ever since Cameron first took office, are off in lala land “tilting at windmills” and causing confusion, damage to the value of the pound and all sorts of mayhem.

Best approach? Ignore the lot of them. If you can’t ignore them, then use google to do your searching for you. Reading any Labour or Liberal press, today, will not give you a clear picture of what is going on and reading Tory based press is almost as bad. At least in the headlines.

Read the side articles, the comments by informed people. Even look at what is happening in the markets. Every time the press start to try and convince the UK that the government is trying to stay in the single market and the customs union, the economy dives into the crapper.

The government is not going to tank the economy. Therefore it’s not worth reading the press about the government doing things that will.

[TheOstrich]

The EU, on the other hand, as far as I'm concerned, are coming over as a bunch of belligerents; utterly determined to run roughshod over the UK as they have done for the last 40 odd years.

100% this. Two articles in the Times this week:

(1) the EU is heavily promoting itself with a £2.5m continent-wide propaganda drive to challenge Euroscepticism - including spending £500,000 in the UK telling us what chumps we are and what benefits we will be losing. Devizes and Tetbury are just two of the communities singled out for a slice of this money, and they appear to be using the town-twinning schemes to channel it.

(2) the EU has already started making it difficult for UK companies to source technology grants, and it seems to be nigh-on impossible now for them to obtain European money.

We should not pay a further single penny to this abhorrent anti-UK organisation. We should divert monies they are insisting we should pay them into British projects, starting now.

As Aggers says, sooner we're out the better. Street party time.

[cromwell]

There have been a few straws in the wind recently, and I have to say that I don't like the look of them much.

For some people reclaiming control of our borders was a big thing in the Brexit debate. But what are the noises coming from government? That they don't want to go back to a hard border in NI? OK, special case maybe.

That EU citizens will have visa free travel in the UK post Brexit.

And most worryingly to me, the government is talking about a "high tech" system of border controls. I think we all know what happens to High tech government projects.

Protecting British fishermen? Gove says EU boats will still be allowed to fish in EU waters post-Brexit.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -says-gove

I would have thought that post-Brexit we would need more border force operatives, more customs officers, more immigration officers and more fishery protection staff and vessels; and there isn't the slightest sign that this is happening - and remember, we are supposedly leaving the customs union and single market in 2019.

Perhaps stuff like this, a warning from Nissan, is why. Note particularly the phrase "Factories can only work efficiently if there are not arduous border checks holding up trade".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/201 ... s-britain/

Big business do not really want border controls. Controls mean checks, checks mean delays, delays cost money.

Big business usually gets what big business wants, and I expect they will again. Watch this space, I suppose.

[Workingman]

What? Things are not going to plan!

It is not surprising as there never was a plan, we are making things up as we go along.

Full speed ahead to the scene of the crash. All aboard, future generations first; move along there!

[AliasAggers]

I'm getting sick and fed-up with the way this Brexit business is being handled.

We need someone here like Donald Trump to deal with it. (I'm not joking).

At my age I suppose that I should not give a damn whatever happens, but I do.
When I look back and recall what Great Britain used to be like, and how it has
changed (mostly for the worst- IMO) during the latter part of my life, it makes
me feel so disappointed.

[Workingman]

The Britain of the past, the UK, call it what you will, is not coming back. These islands are a small archipelago off the coast of Europe. We are living on the profits of an Empire long gone and have been doing so for far too long. We can no longer stand on our own two feet.

We offer *services* that can be reproduced anywhere with the will to invest in their replication in a tower block, and there are many. The people who produce those services will go where the money is, no questions asked. Banking and financial services, unlike railways and other utilities such as power, water and basic physical infrastructure can be moved at the drop of a hat.

What we do not offer are the products, *things*, the rest of the world needs and in the numbers that they are required. Other places do, and in greater numbers and at a better price than we can. We are bereft of the raw materials to produce things in numbers, so even if we could get the raw materials at world prices our production costs, mainly wages, would make them unattractive unless they were of the very best quality.

We are a long way off being a world power again, and the ROW knows it.

Buckle up, it is going to be a rough ride.

[Suff]

And Japan is a small archipelago off the shores of the Asian landmass......

Nobody would make the mistake of assuming that Japan is a nobody who can be ignored. Well apart from KJ Nutter that is.

Points to note. Japan lost WWII and become an occupied country. Japan does not have a permanent seat on the UN security council with a veto. Japan has a "self defence force" and no nuclear weapons.

Japan's GDP is half that of China and Japan has had economic problems for two decades.

Clearly Japan needs to get over it's "empire" past and join with China and India to make the largest trading area in the world and to get some power and influence in the world.

It cuts both ways and, when you say it out loud, sounds absolutely as ludicrous as it is.

After all Australia, that tower of population, economy and world influence, clearly can't stand on it's own. It's a nobody you know.

Just because we joined the EU at a bad time when the US (and the UK), were funding Germany to keep the USSR at bay, does not mean the UK is either weak or powerless standing on it's own.

When the UK leaves the EU, it will take the majority of the first strike nuclear power of the EU with it, half it's military strike force and a the second largest, state based, economy, with it.

If you look at it from a different perspective. The EU, struggling economically, losing influence in the world and facing ever increasing terror threats.... Can hardly afford to lose the power, economy and world standing of the UK.

Yet the EU is driving as fast as it can to push the UK into either submission or hard Brexit. Through fear of what the UK leaving will do to the cohesion and strength of the EU.

Now if that's lack of influence, I'd like it double. The only lack of influence for the UK is to be buried in a cabal of 27 other jealous nations who club together (almost every single time), to do the UK down.

I know which one I prefer.

[cromwell]

It is not surprising as there never was a plan, we are making things up as we go along.

I would have to disagree there. Originally yes, there was no plan. Remain didn't think they could possibly lose (right up to the last minute, anyway), and Leave never thought that they would win.

But as far as border controls are concerned I think there is a plan; which is how to avoid implementing them whilst pretending that they are being implemented.

The biggest problem is this. The British people voted narrowly to leave the EU. But the political classes and the civil service are massively pro Remain. Given that, we are going to have some bumpy times ahead.

There is already a (not very) cunning plan by Remain politicians, which is to say that of course they respect the will of the people, but we need a transitional period of oh, up to three years post Brexit.

This will conveniently carry us past the next general election. The scenario then unfolds that the GE result is a reflection of a "changed mood" in the country, trumps the referendum result and really we shouldn't leave the EU at all. But as the electorate are all so thick they'll never suspect a thing!