EXIT NEGOTIATIONS

[Pannonian]

"Any attempts by Remainer MPs to delay or obstruct #Brexit must be opposed. Today I have formally asked Polish Government to veto any motions by EU to allow extension of Article 50. We are leaving 11pm on March 29th as promised."

Daniel Kawczynski, Conservative MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, has no position in the UK government. Q for US posters: would this come under the Logan Act were this a US Congressman?

[Furunculus]

I think I asked the same question about someone else a while back.

[Pannonian]

Also, James Dyson, one of the most prominent backers of Brexit, is moving his HQ to Singapore, having already moved most of the manufacturing overseas. What is it about Brexiteers and hypocrisy? They talk about sovereignty and ask foreign governments to overrule Parliament. They talk about post-Brexit opportunity and move their investments abroad.

[Husar]

I'm reading a whole lot of corporations are preparing for Brexit, but some also see a chance: That German corporations can get lucrative opportunities within the EU once the former British suppliers are out of the picture due to tariffs and other logistical problems.

The logistical problems of having border controls on a very narrow road with trucks piling up for kilometers also came up in the article.
"May you live in exciting times!" I always forget whether that was meant as a blessing or a curse.

[Pannonian]

I'm reading a whole lot of corporations are preparing for Brexit, but some also see a chance: That German corporations can get lucrative opportunities within the EU once the former British suppliers are out of the picture due to tariffs and other logistical problems.

The logistical problems of having border controls on a very narrow road with trucks piling up for kilometers also came up in the article.
"May you live in exciting time!" I always forget whether that was meant as a blessing or a curse.

Richard North, a Brexit advocate until the ERG seized control of the agenda, reckons there won't be queues of lorries, as they'll go through their inventories and work out what can and can't be transported, and that there will be abnormally low traffic instead. Instead, we'll be screwed another way, as there will simply be less trade due to barriers that can't be prepared for.

Another point about Dyson, who was one of the leading business advocates for Brexit. Singapore recently signed a trade treaty with the EU. So after having taken the UK out of the EU on the grounds that our prospects are better outside, he's now moved his business out of the UK and to somewhere that has a new agreement with the EU. It's unbelievable how hypocritical the Brexiteers get yet their followers will continue to make excuses for them and maintain that Brexit is a good idea, in denial of the evidence of their heroes' actions.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Ya'll missed your chance to elect Lord Buckethead. I liked his platform.

[Gilrandir]

"May you live in exciting time!"

It should read: "May, you live in exciting time!"

[Husar]

It should read: "May, you live in exciting time!"

Times should be plural either way.

What has May actually achieved if there is a hard brexit?At the moment it's not very interesting though, because anything could still happen and the rest is guesswork.

[Pannonian]

Rees Mogg now suggests the government should suspend Parliament if no deal is blocked. Do the Brexiteers here agree with this tactic, to suspend Parliament until the March deadline is passed and Brexit is safely through?

[Montmorency]

Article suggests Corbyn supports Brexit not (merely) out of some ideological drive but because the electoral picture is one of deep-red Remain constituencies and 'purple' swing constituencies (such as in smaller industrial cities), and the purple constituencies are heavily pro-Brexit...

First-past-the-post forces Britain’s political parties to prioritize marginal seats with small majorities over those where their support is strongest. In the case of Brexit, it appears that Corbyn has decided to abandon his most devoted followers out of fear of alienating provincial Leavers. Labour currently holds 29 of the 30 safest parliamentary seats in the entire country. These seats are overwhelmingly concentrated in densely populated cities, London most of all, that returned large majorities for Remain in 2016. Labour’s lead in towns populated by socially conservative, working-class voters that voted out, however, is much smaller.

According to a paper published by the London-based think tank Policy Network, 49 of Labour’s top 100 target seats—the party needs to gain 64 to achieve a parliamentary majority in the next election—are located in English “town” constituencies. The Labour leadership clearly fears that endorsing anti-Brexit policies popular with its metropolitan diehards, like a second referendum, risks repelling the town-dwelling voters that it needs to secure a parliamentary majority. Members of Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet are so terrified by this prospect that several have threatened to resign if the party backs a so-called People’s Vote.

Of course, the reverse is possible as well, but the uncomfortable truth for metropolitan voters is that Labour can afford to shed votes in cities. The party won Liverpool Walton, its safest seat, by 32,551 votes in 2017. By contrast, in Dudley North, a constituency outside Birmingham, where the Leave vote stood at 67.6 percent, a mere 22 votes nudged Labour to victory in the last election. The chances of Labour losing its majority in Walton borders on zero, which certainly isn’t the case in Dudley. And while backing a second referendum might endear the Labour Party to metropolitan voters, they’re not the ones that the party needs to win over. In 2017, the Conservatives edged Labour in 54 seats by a margin of less than 10 percent; 47 of those marginal constituencies voted Leave. Corbyn clearly feels that honoring the Brexit vote is key to defending Labour’s paper-thin majorities in Leave-voting towns and seizing marginal seats currently held by the Tories.

Maybe Corbyn is more "pragmatic" than has been assumed. How... American.

However...

Labour’s electoral predicament highlights a much deeper dysfunction in Britain’s political system. It’s often said that Brexit has paralyzed politics in the U.K., but Brexit is only a symptom of that paralysis rather than its cause. The real root of the problem lies in first-past-the-post, which denies truly proportional representation.

Rory is vindicated!

The past two decades have seen a major realignment in British politics. It’s widely believed that by accepting Margaret Thatcher’s free-market consensus, Tony Blair’s “New Labour” abandoned working-class voters, who Blair and his allies regarded as unlikely to switch to the Tories in significant numbers. But support for Labour among skilled workers dropped 9 percentage points during Blair’s first two terms as prime minister, between 1997 and 2005. The drop was even greater among unskilled workers, sliding 13 points in the same period. According to a report by the Fabian Society, a London think tank, the 63 most working-class constituencies have swung toward the Conservatives by 3.6 percent since 2005, while cities have moved toward Labour by 5.6 percent.

Labour has increasingly become the party of liberal-minded, university-educated professionals and ethnic minority voters concentrated in metropolitan constituencies, yet it remains electorally dependent on votes from homogenous, working-class towns—particularly since the 2015 general election, when a Scottish National Party landslide decimated Labour in Scotland. The first-past-the-post system forces disparate voters with opposing values together into a brittle, schizophrenic coalition, one that neuters Labour’s capacity to act as an effective opposition. The party’s fear of alienating either side of its coalition is so great that it has largely avoided taking a concrete stand on Brexit at all, aside from demanding permanent Customs Union membership. This means that Labour has helped facilitate Brexit without shaping it in any meaningful way.

Under proportional representation, there would be no need for Labour to pursue such a broken strategy. It would be free to adopt a firm anti-Brexit position that would help it extend its majority in cities, court the 39 percent of Conservatives that backed Remain, and steal votes from the Liberal Democrats. This would allow a much more natural coalition to emerge, one that’s more in line with the changing profile of the Labour vote. But until first-past-the-post is discarded, the party will remain beholden to its Leave minority.

[Pannonian]

Article suggests Corbyn supports Brexit not (merely) out of some ideological drive but because the electoral picture is one of deep-red Remain constituencies and 'purple' swing constituencies (such as in smaller industrial cities), and the purple constituencies are heavily pro-Brexit...

Maybe Corbyn is more "pragmatic" than has been assumed. How... American.

However...

Rory is vindicated!

Corbyn: “Article 50 has to be invoked now”

Note the date and time. Corbyn is ideologically pro-Brexit. He probably voted Leave in the privacy of the voting booth.

[edyzmedieval]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-politics-live

As expected, this did not go down well. No chance of a soft landing Brexit, it's either a hard deal or bye bye with no-deal.

This is going to be really bad.

[CrossLOPER]

Also, James Dyson, one of the most prominent backers of Brexit, is moving his HQ to Singapore, having already moved most of the manufacturing overseas. What is it about Brexiteers and hypocrisy? They talk about sovereignty and ask foreign governments to overrule Parliament. They talk about post-Brexit opportunity and move their investments abroad.

Video games are not entertaining enough, so they moved on to troll-playthroughs in real life?

[a completely inoffensive name]

So, reading a recap of May's key decisions that influenced the Brexit outcome.

1. Delayed invoking Article 50 for several months after the vote.
2. Called snap election that reduced a great lead to a weak DUP-Tory government.
3. Kept ministers out of the loop from negotiations.
4. Delayed vote on deal while refusing to renegotiate.

There are others I am forgetting but I mean...she has to be willingly stacking the deck against a competent Brexit. I think May has been covertly sandbagging the whole process and making Brexit as bad of an option as possible.
Question is, is she incompetent and I am wrong or am I right? We will only find out at the very end. If she commits to No Deal and refuses a second referendum, then she really is the worst PM the UK has ever had. Otherwise if she "caves", my money is on her driving politics to be as chaotic as possible for the last two years to justify another direct vote by the people, with the remain camp more energized after two years of Brexit fatigue.

[Furunculus]

Or is it just the most difficult geopolitical act (outside total war) that any advanced and integrated state has attempted in modern history?

[rory_20_uk]

Visa-free travel to the EU for up to 90 days every 180 days. For the cost of under £7 every 3 years. And why? Because allowing this is beneficial to the EU (as well as the UK of course).

Oddly the article focuses on whether Gibraltar is called a colony or not... Otherwise this could make a no-deal Brexit seem less bad - and the Politicians are not interested in such messages.

What next? Pointing out that the Irish consistently point to the "Spirit" of the Good Friday Agreement at risk of being breached since even a hard boarder would no be breaching the legal agreement... An agreement that was in essence made with Terrorists.

[Husar]

Or is it just the most difficult geopolitical act (outside total war) that any advanced and integrated state has attempted in modern history?

Perhaps, and once you've successfully completed it, you can celebrate your tremendous bravery in the ruins that used to be your cities.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Perhaps, and once you've successfully completed it, you can celebrate your tremendous bravery in the ruins that used to be your cities.

Europe has had its share of that.

[Husar]

Europe has had its share of that.

And will continue to have had it, Britain is not Europe anymore in April, it's an island and it's very special. Those won't just be ruins, they will be Great Ruins!

[rory_20_uk]

And will continue to have had it, Britain is not Europe anymore in April, it's an island and it's very special. Those won't just be ruins, they will be Great Ruins!

No - the UK will be in Europe, not the EU. The two are very different. One is a geographic location, the other is a metastatised trade body.

[Husar]

No - the UK will be in Europe, not the EU. The two are very different. One is a geographic location, the other is a metastatised trade body.

That snide remark dissing British exceptionalism flew right past your head?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Or is it just the most difficult geopolitical act (outside total war) that any advanced and integrated state has attempted in modern history?

The difficulty of the act doesn't fully explain her actions.

[Furunculus]

Well, quite.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Having returned to mourn Fragony let me just leave you with this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47143135

I'd say negotiations are over, wouldn't you?

Also - Donald Tusk is apparently more of an arsehole than Donald Trump.

[Don Corleone]

I have been trying to follow on what's going on with the whole Brexit negotiations. It seems to me that the primary sticking point is the Irish backstop? UK politicians (who are Leavers) are insisting on an open trading border between Ireland and Northern Ireland? And the EU government is unwilling to entertain this option? Do I have that correct?

Also, is this truly the crux of the failed Brexit plan? Or is it a fig leaf?

[Pannonian]

I have been trying to follow on what's going on with the whole Brexit negotiations. It seems to me that the primary sticking point is the Irish backstop? UK politicians (who are Leavers) are insisting on an open trading border between Ireland and Northern Ireland? And the EU government is unwilling to entertain this option? Do I have that correct?

Also, is this truly the crux of the failed Brexit plan? Or is it a fig leaf?

The GFA, a bilateral treaty between the UK and RoI, requires an open border between NI and RoI. The UK wants to exit the customs union and single market. The EU, to allow these contradictory demands, has suggested an open border between NI and RoI (thus keeping the GFA), with the customs border only coming into effect between GB and NI. The DUP, whose votes are propping up the government on Brexit-related matters (since the Tories do not have a majority), won't accept a border between GB and NI. The newest revelations are that the UK will throw open the borders. Which will kill agriculture among other industries, as exports will be subject to tariffs (and will thus be uncompetitive), but imports will not (and thus will undercut homegrown produce). That's the rub when Brexit theorists talk about switching to a Singapore style globalised service economy. The UK has an agricultural industry. Singapore does not. Singapore can implement certain measures the UK cannot, if the UK wants to keep its agriculture. Free trade cities like Singapore and Hong Kong are also only possible because of a different, more urbanised mentality.

If you can reconcile all these contradicting requirements with a practical solution that does not solely consist of hating the EU, feel free to email HM government. Tusk's announcement that PFH has taken exception to is the culmination of the EU's frustration with the UK not having any clear idea what it wants, except to blame the EU for all ills. And contrary to what PFH says, this is not the end of negotiations. Negotiations ended with May's withdrawal agreement, which was defeated in the Commons by the largest margin in recorded history. After May finalised that agreement, the EU said that was it; there will be no further changes without a change in the UK's position. The UK has not changed its demands, except to repeat them louder with louder threats of taking down the EU with us. And each time May and co has done this, the EU has repeated its position: there will be no further changes without changes in the UK's position. This day in, day out, repeat of this routine is the reason for Jean-Claude Juncker's quote, “I’m less Catholic than my good friend Donald. He strongly believes in heaven and by opposite in hell. I believe in heaven and I have never seen hell, apart [from] during the time I was doing my job here. It’s a hell,”

Another quote from Tusk, less highlighted by Brexiteers but of greater importance, is "There is little chance of the UK remaining in the EU as both May and Corbyn are “pro-Brexit” and there is “no effective leadership for Remain”. Corbyn, as leader of the loyal Opposition, should have been holding the loyal government's actions to account by scrutinising their suggestions. Instead, Corbyn was the first to call for an immediate exit, before any plans had been made, and has kept it up since. Farage said before the vote that a 52-48 result in favour of Remain would not mean the end of the story, but he and his mates would continue to campaign for Brexit. After the 52-48 result in favour of Leave, the main parties have been competing to interpret the result to mean the fringes of the Leave argument, that nearly every Leave campaigner had assured would not happen, while the Remainers have been completely ignored.

[Don Corleone]

Wow, thanks for the synopsis, Pannonian. This is actually quite disturbing. Not much hope for progress in 7 weeks.

[Husar]

That's the rub when Brexit theorists talk about switching to a Singapore style globalised service economy. The UK has an agricultural industry. Singapore does not. Singapore can implement certain measures the UK cannot, if the UK wants to keep its agriculture. Free trade cities like Singapore and Hong Kong are also only possible because of a different, more urbanised mentality.

There is also a small difference in terms of population. Is there even enough demand for that many people in a new service economy? Surely you can transform into a service economy, but if noone wants that service, it may not turn out to be a very profitable decision.

[Furunculus]

An easy answer would be to Signal that a single rulebook for goods is an end goal of the fta negotiations in the political declaration.

Goods can move, people can move regardless because of the cta.

We're not a million miles away with the backstop...

[Pannonian]

An easy answer would be to Signal that a single rulebook for goods is an end goal of the fta negotiations in the political declaration.

Goods can move, people can move regardless because of the cta.

We're not a million miles away with the backstop...

What does your signalling mean in concrete terms? This government has repeatedly indicated that informal agreements are there to be broken, and even bilateral treaties should be unilaterally breakable by the UK, so no one in their right minds will believe anything that isn't legally nailed down. Oh, and the deadline is due in less than 2 months, upon which we will be treated to your wonderland of no deal Brexit. Liam Fox reckons it's "survivable". Did that word appear on a bus during the campaign?