Stan dealt admirably with the fact that tariffs are unlikely to be a major problem on WTO rules, Matt. Let me deal with the Euro 100 bn claim. It hasn't just been "mentioned", it is currently the figure for which the Commission is pursuing the UK on behalf of member states. Given that position, if Keir Starmer on behalf of a Labour Government said the Commission : "Could you reduce Euro 100bn please, but if you won't, we'll accept it anyway because "any deal is better than no deal""? do you really think Juncker is going to say, "Very well, old chap, how little would you like to pay?" The EU is not some benign group that allows members to leave with a fond farewell. It's more like a sect. And to them, we are deep pocket. Juncker and Co are ruthless operators that will try and screw anyone to the ground that crosses them. If you don't believe me, read some of what Yanis Varoufakis has to say about how the EU dealt with the Greek Government. Unyielding when they hold any state by the gonads, and utterly ruthless.
I dead, 13 injured in Times Square after car crashes into crowd. thought to be terrorist attack, but early yet.
I think the the Supreme Leader is taking massive victory for granted and produced a startlingly honest document with her name literally all over it. By not ruling out tax rises she makes them inevitable, along with spending cuts and raiding people's saving to pay for the public services they get. Anyone who votes for her can't say they weren't warned. Loads of protesters outside the place Big Mother gave her speech, which was cringe making of course. The Tories had to go in the back way, she arrived in her car, the rest of the Cabinet on a bus. Probably relegated there because according to R4 this morning not a single one of them agrees with the 'tens of thousands' immigration promise.
Just seen Pesto on ITV News trying to 'sell' tonight's 'Big Debate' minus Corbyn and May. All the others will be making promises they don't have to keep because they are frankly 'unsellable'...
Barnier, chief EU negotiator, has said that the €100bn claim is false, and EU sources put the figure more like €40bn. Which is still a lot of money. The EU is no more of a sect than the Tory, or Labour parties. Judging by what Merkel said in Berlin yesterday, this is definitely going to get messy, the EU will certainly fight its own corner very hard. And if you look at it from their perspective, that's fair enough. As Merkel noted, if you limit free movement of people, that has to have a cost. If you use your new freedoms to change environmental or employment standards that are level across the EU that changes the competitive landscape and the EU has to respond, to protect its own businesses. Some might interpret these things as threats, I think they are just honest and the message is meant for the 27, we are an afterthought. The EU already understands it will be worse off whatever the result of the negotiations (we clearly don't), but what happens if they make British goods and products uncompetitive in Europe? European companies take up the slack. The same might happen here, but they have a 500 million market to play in, we have 63 million.
More doom and gloom eh? I think May has actually gone towards the centre ground with some of the manifesto, although I agree that the Tories are taking austerity too far, particularly with social care and the NHS.
Reverse mate, I think the €100bn is a gross exaggeration, on the basis of no evidence at all I'll guess we will settle at €35bn. As I said, I think a lot of the stuff interpreted as 'threats' here is actually aimed at the 27, not us. Tory manifesto has given us a pretty clear choice. Apparently they are calling themselves The Conservative and Unionist Party again, not sure why. It really is a very personal campaign from them, entirely focussed on May, all 'I' and no 'we'. Real gamble that her popularity will hold. Not doing anything for her core support group, the elderly, and putting price cuts, governance changes, employment charges on business in return for a promise of a 2% cut in corporation tax. risky stuff, relying on opinion polls, as you pointed out earlier. By mistake I'm watching the end of Parties that don't matter apart from the SNP a bit debate. I like the way that the audience refuses to clap anything that Nuttalls says. All the other got a round of applause after their final comments.
It's probably to try and win votes in Scotland, with Ruth Davidson acting as her mouthpiece up here, and pitching as anti-independance - I think they'll do well, and finish 2nd in a lot of places, but the SNP will probably win a similar amount of seats as last time - the one Labour MP in Edinburgh will probably lose his seat, as they are in tatters up here - Keiza Dugdale comes across worse than Corbyn. There are areas of Scotland that are Pro-Brexit, and as Remain is a primary issue with the SNP they may switch their vote. Labour have sat on the fence with regards to Independance, so anti-referendum voters may switch to Tory. The Greens have sided with the SNP, and have pulled out of standing in marginal seats to give SNP a better chance of beating the Tory candidate, especially Mundells seat in the Borders (I think he had a majority of about 750 votes, Greens got about 800 at last election....). UKIP are standing in a few places, but will be lucky to keep their deposit.
Hopefully not. I think she's shot herself in the foot with her social care policy, I've heard quite a few people on the radio who were going to vote conservative aren't going to now. That manifesto seems very UKIP like to me. I feel another anti-establishment shock result on the cards.
I like the idea of anti -Tory, anti- UKIP, anti- Nationalist shocks, but it will be a far bigger shock than Brexit, Trump or any political result I can remember if the Tories don't form the next Government.
The whole Tory strategy from the 2015 campaign onwards has been to attract UKIP voters - and they have been very successful. Labour is polling at a higher level than Milliband achieved in the 2015 election, but they're still way behind because pretty much all of those who are switching from UKIP now say they will vote Tory.
I think this is a little disingenuous. The UKIP voters that the Tories are after were Tory voters that went to UKIP when that knob Cameron wanted us to stay in the EU. Most of them are not screaming right wing nut jobs, which is all that will be left for UKIP, who are all washed up now that they have achieved their political aim.
UKIP would have realistically taken lots of Labour votes too given the areas they were (are?) popular in. He's right in that the Tories have massively pandered to them, particularly since May took the job.
Many who voted UKIP prior to 2015 were ex-Labour voters. Cameron wooed them with the promise of a referendum and it did the trick. Of course, it didn't then go as he'd planned. The strategy under May has been to hang on to their votes by signalling a Hard Brexit and to mop up the rest by cynically continuing to promise to cut net immigration to tens of thousands. They won't achieve that of course (unless we have a severe recession), but it will win the election.
I still think may will win by a landslide, if she does and labour are wiped out I'd love to see the SNP as the second biggest party. It will be funny hearing Alex Salmon at PMQ quizzing May about her plans for grammar schools in England.
The point I was making about sect, is that the EU looks to punish any member that wants to leave. Barnier is chief negotiator, but Juncker is President of the Commission, and his current position is £100 billion. He'd claim that if he thought he was dealing with a UK government that was governed by an "any deal is better than no deal" policy which is Labour's position. The problem on money is that the EU member contributors won't pay a penny extra to make up the UK's net £7-8 bn shortfall, and the subsidised members don't want to accept a penny less. But since there aren't any other deep pockets around, the subsidised members are going to have to acclimatise to taking less. When you say the EU might make British good and services uncompetitive in Europe, under WTO "most favoured nation rates", punitive taxes and starting a trade war is illegal, so that would not be leverage for the EU in forthcoming negotiations. It's been estimated that the cost of tariffs under WTO rules will be within the £7bn membership fees that the UK will save.
We've had this discussion before. The EU have this funding problem in all circumstances except the U.K. accepting a 'pay to play' deal which is unlikely in the extreme. In that sense the divorce settlement is important to put back the EU budget reckoning a few years (and if we settle at say €35bn and pay back over 5 years it gives them some thinking time). I read yesterday in the Times that Barnier has denied the €100bn figure. For propaganda purposes it is obviously better for Brexiters to ignore this. The bureaucracy of ex Customs Union trade may make us less competitive in Europe (and EU goods in the U.K.), they don't have to be illegal or punitive. But it is more likely that a lower £ will continue to make British goods affordable, and make EU goods unaffordable in the U.K. Be interesting to see how the EU reacts to what is currently a big trade surplus between the 27 and the U.K. falling dramatically. It's not so much trade in finished products (I am sure that we could get used to not having Spanish out of season fruit and vegetables in our supermarkets) I'm more interested in the trade in components between companies, and the potential impact of changes there. And just like May won't tell us the threshold for an elderly person not to get the Winter Fuel Allowance ("bad luck old woman, your pension is £1 over the limit"!) I don't know the pivot point where it becomes attractive for an entrepreneur in Augsburg or Coventry to set up their own manufacturing to supply their 'home' market. But, theoretically, Brexit could boost economic activity in both the EU and UK. It's just more likely to in the EU as they have a much bigger internal market, and judging by the news reports about our dependence on EU workers, the skills in place. And a lower £, increased levies on U.K. companies employing EU nationals, and a generally unwelcoming atmosphere towards immigrants, those skills are less likely to want to come here anyway. Which is what Big Mother wants.
