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Author Topic: Let's Get Political!  (Read 1996490 times)
Nemo
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« Reply #2280 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 12:43:13 »

Our main negotiating chip appears to be a threat to turn into a tax haven if we don't get a good deal. Not sure how well that's going to go down.

Oh, and they've now said parliament will get a vote on it, having spent loads of money fighting that exact point in the Supreme Court. Not sure I get that. It'd pass by miles anyway, no way a majority of MPs vote to end their careers unless public opinion shifts seismically.
« Last Edit: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 12:45:40 by Nemo » Logged
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« Reply #2281 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 12:45:49 »

I think we will go round in circles on this, but to me it sounds like they are ruling out staying in the single market because they can't separate it from the freedom of movement.

So we are now relying on Europe to negotiate a tariff free trade agreement with us to give us best possible access.

Personally I think its a big presumption that the UK economy will be deemed so important to the EU/ danger of becoming a potential tax haven (good point Chubbs) that  it'll end in our favour.

Mind you, the alternative wasn't much better. Stay in, free movement (great!) but no say. Or for those that don't like Johnny Foreigner - free movement not so great (even though whatever we introduce will ultimately stop a fraction of net immigration)

Brexit schmexit.
« Last Edit: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 12:48:21 by Batch » Logged
ghanimah

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« Reply #2282 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 12:45:56 »

He isn't dead right, we don't know yet.

May has just made every indication we're leaving the SM, having sucked up the free trade nonsense from her Tory lunatic fringe. If we don't stay in the SM (even as a temporary measure) then Batch is dead right this sounds like an exercise in foot shooting right now.
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« Reply #2283 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 13:05:36 »

Our main negotiating chip appears to be a threat to turn into a tax haven if we don't get a good deal. Not sure how well that's going to go down.


Incredibly well if you are a huge multi-national or incredibly wealthy, less well if you are unskilled and looking for work, I assume that we will just see loads of companies basing themselves here for tax purposes (great if one is an accountant, lawyer or administrator) but doing manufacturing etc elsewhere in Europe to remain in the EU. Going to lead to an almighty shake up in the employment structure of the country.

I think we will go round in circles on this, but to me it sounds like they are ruling out staying in the single market because they can't separate it from the freedom of movement.

I assume they have based this upon polling/or analysis of why people voted to leave and if this is the outcome they be;live will make the majority happy it rather contradicts the argument that it wasn't all about immigration.

May has just made every indication we're leaving the SM, having sucked up the free trade nonsense from her Tory lunatic fringe. If we don't stay in the SM (even as a temporary measure) then Batch is dead right this sounds like an exercise in foot shooting right now.

I think that it just reveals May to be a massive opportunist and closet Brexiter as to have 'campaigned' to remain and then come up with this is either flip flopping of the highest order or just shows her to be harder to the right than anyone ever imaged (although her authoritarian performance as FS was perhaps a clue).

We will see what happens although I suspect to many her legacy is going to outstrip that of Thatcher.
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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #2284 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 13:11:07 »

 There is a logic to hard Brexit.....namely what was the point in voting out if you still pay to be in without any political input.  Where this will go is hard to tell....many economists have predicted disaster but they tend to be discredited anyway, having largely failed to see the 2008 crash.

 The logic of the Brexiteers is that it will speed up the process of money gushing up from the poor, to enrich their class. Thereby continuing the trend of private affluence, but public squalor, and the further decimation of the outer regions of the UK.

 At least in theory if it goes tits up and leads to civil strife within the UK and not just somewhere distant like Ulster...we still have the option of voting for an alternative.
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ghanimah

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« Reply #2285 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 15:39:24 »

I think we will go round in circles on this, but to me it sounds like they are ruling out staying in the single market because they can't separate it from the freedom of movement.

So we are now relying on Europe to negotiate a tariff free trade agreement with us to give us best possible access.

Personally I think its a big presumption that the UK economy will be deemed so important to the EU/ danger of becoming a potential tax haven (good point Chubbs) that  it'll end in our favour.

Mind you, the alternative wasn't much better. Stay in, free movement (great!) but no say. Or for those that don't like Johnny Foreigner - free movement not so great (even though whatever we introduce will ultimately stop a fraction of net immigration)

Brexit schmexit.

Unilaterally limiting free movement within the Single Market as an non-EU Member State is perfectly possible under Article 112 of the EFTA/EEA (single market) agreement. However what we seem to be seeing here is the Westminster bubble effect which inexplicitly renders them unable to use Google, and a Tory party which cannot get to grips, or will not admit to having joined an anti-democratic political union back in 1972.

Instead the Tories rely on the false premise we joined an economic construct rather than a political one and is trying to wriggle out by pretending the EU was always a free trade area that somehow went off "the rails".

The Single Market is a different entity and treaty but without continuing access to it via EFTA/EEA, a "tariff free trade agreement" is a non-starter. It rests on a Swiss based bi-lateral option which has always been a fudge and has taken over two decades and means that neither the EU or the Swiss like it. International treaties are fiendishly complicated and take an age - the average time is about ten year. Agreeing a similar treaty with the EU will be no different and will likely take longer.

There's no easy way to put this - leaving the SM in the short term will be a disaster. To give but one example, we would no longer be part of the European Common Aviation Area. This means we would need to renegotiate bilateral agreements for airlines to fly between the UK and the EU/EEA nations, and for airlines to fly between the UK and other countries. For example, the rights for airlines to fly between the UK and USA is provided for in the EU-US Open Skies Agreement. Without a replacement agreement, this right would be immediately gone.

All aircraft would be grounded, with the obvious economic consequences that would ensure. If this is May's "path" then clearly our parliamentarians are more hopeless than we thought.
« Last Edit: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 15:45:31 by ghanimah » Logged

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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #2286 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 15:52:25 »

 The EU is primarily a political construct....so it can be unpicked politically or not as the case may be. History tells us though that trade wars usually end in some sort of conflict, so here's hoping the Brexiteers know what they're doing...
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pauld
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« Reply #2287 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 17:32:04 »

The EU is primarily a political construct....so it can be unpicked politically or not as the case may be. History tells us though that trade wars usually end in some sort of conflict, so here's hoping the Brexiteers know what they're doing...
Gove, Johnson, Farage ... that's a big hope...
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« Reply #2288 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 17:41:11 »

This is just a case of we need to wait and see don't we? No one knows how it is going to end up whatsoever so they in all honestly.
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« Reply #2289 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 22:06:33 »

Not sure I get that. It'd pass by miles anyway, no way a majority of MPs vote to end their careers unless public opinion shifts seismically.

I'm sure I'll be corrected if wrong, but I think that every poll since um, freedom day, that's re-asked that fateful question has affirmed that we don't want Brexit.

As an exercise in national headbanging stupidity this whole sorry fiasco is surely pretty much unparalleled.
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ghanimah

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« Reply #2290 on: Tuesday, January 17, 2017, 23:41:19 »

I'm sure I'll be corrected if wrong, but I think that every poll since um, freedom day, that's re-asked that fateful question has affirmed that we don't want Brexit.

As an exercise in national headbanging stupidity this whole sorry fiasco is surely pretty much unparalleled.

Yes because opinion polls have shown themselves to be consistently accurate either here or in America
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pauld
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« Reply #2291 on: Wednesday, January 18, 2017, 09:35:36 »

I'm sure I'll be corrected if wrong, but I think that every poll since um, freedom day, that's re-asked that fateful question has affirmed that we don't want Brexit.
That's also what the polls showed before the vote and predicted as the outcome of the vote. The only lesson to be drawn there is about the reliability of polls and the wisdom of continuing to rely on them!
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« Reply #2292 on: Wednesday, January 18, 2017, 10:09:50 »

That's also what the polls showed before the vote and predicted as the outcome of the vote. The only lesson to be drawn there is about the reliability of polls and the wisdom of continuing to rely on them!

I think that modern predictive polling suffers from a number of problems, it all seems to have emerged after the 2015 election where no one admitted to voting tory but they obviously did in their droves.
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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #2293 on: Wednesday, January 18, 2017, 10:41:24 »

I think that modern predictive polling suffers from a number of problems, it all seems to have emerged after the 2015 election where no one admitted to voting tory but they obviously did in their droves.

The phenomenon of the shy Tory has always been with us.....back in the 80's pollsters used to conduct post election surveys of how people voted at a recent election....the Tory vote was always well down on the one that counted. 

 I suppose a Tory vote is essentially taken out of self interest, whereas many people like to be thought of as caring for others.
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« Reply #2294 on: Wednesday, January 18, 2017, 10:49:33 »

I had to laugh out load while listening to the Nicky Campbell phone in programme on BBC Radio 5 this morning.  One of the callers, an ardent Leaver, started with a call for the country to come together - as Theresa May has - to put our differences aside, and to make Brexit work now that it's definitely happening.  She then went on - and I'm not making this up - to deride almost all of the Remain voters that she had met while campaigning for a Leave vote as rude, opinionated and aggressive.  She seemed not to spot the irony.

The country is more divided now than ever, and telling folk to come together isn't going to work.  It's an emotional topic, and your vote would have been largely determined by your outlook and how you see yourself and the country.  Telling a Remainer to get behind a programme that they don't believe in makes as much sense as telling a Leeds supporter that they need to start following Man U...because a narrow majority voted in favour of it.
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