Oh the irony - Vindicative? - Who is it that won't guarantee the basic right of your home to Europeans that have contributed much to The UK? Hateful? - Look no further than your elected representative Farage. Selfish? - You wants to leave the club but feel that you should still be freely able to use the facilities. Inward looking ? - Not even going to grace that witz a comment Undemocratic - Your great country is happy but how did Scotand, Wales and N. Ireland vote again?
Do totally respect yours and others points of view though. I'm now beyond caring about all this brexit stuff. I'm out
Yes. Unless Barnier tells them "Yes you can have exactly what you want -we want to trade with you whatever the price we have to pay. Please please reconsider. Forget the special relationship with Trump. You can have one with us. Your wish is our command" It will always be portrayed as being uncooperative and vindictive.
You've slipped in a bit at the end of this post, so I'll answer it. Legal obligation is highly relevant when discussing the divorce bill. As guardians of the nation's purse strings, the government has a duty not to give away monies that it is not legally obliged to. However, in discussions over a future trading relationship with the EU, goodwill payments can properly be considered because the UK will gain a benefit (as will the EU) from smooth transition and friction free trading going forward. That's why it's so ridiculous of the EU to compartmentalise divorce and future trading. That is what's causing the problem. And because the EU has given itself the unilateral power to decide if and when a future relationship will be discussed, the ball is firmly in their court to get things moving, if businesses all over Europe are not to suffer badly.
See my reply to Stan #12684. You talk about the UK obligations under the divorce bill. How do you get over the House of Lords opinion that we owe nothing, Yorks?
Probably true, Danish. You say the EU is stronger than ever. It has some pretty big problems - not least migration issues from the Middle East and Africa, security and terrorism, basket case economies and ultra high unemployment in countries like Spain, Italy and Greece, and politically, the rise of the far right, which has not been stemmed despite establishment relief following the Dutch and French elections. Personally, I hope the EU stabilises, and so too, the UK/EU relationship. We've reached a sticking point in the Brexit negotiations. Time for May, Merkel and Macron to put their heads together. There's plenty of goodwill there if they look for it.
How much we pay is a political decision. The politicians may choose to hide behind some legalistic smokescreen if it suits them, or choose to ignore it if it suits them. Besides, the ECJ trumps some House of Lords Committee as long as we are still in the EU, if you want to go down a purely legalistic route. It seems we are involved in a game of international chicken. May started this with her highly adversarial kick off for the British position, when she thought she had authority. As I have said before, in purely economic terms the EU has already resigned itself to being worse off as a result of Brexit, but they know the UK will be far more worse off, especially if there is no deal. They probably reckon our government will blink first. I think they are wrong, for several reasons. We don't actually have a properly functioning government, just a zombie PM and a highly fragmented cabinet with members who contradict each other on a regular basis, all resting on a wafer thin cobbled together parliamentary majority. They are not operating on any collective, rational basis, just on individual self interest and an obsession with what things look like to a certain, shrinking, segment of British voters. We will stagger on reaching no decisions, not because we have a clever strategy, but because we aren't capable of reaching collective decisions. They way things look at the moment I think there is a strong chance that everything will break down and we will have a chaotic cliff edge Brexit. Just because common sense and rationality argue that both sides will see sense to avoid this is no guarantee that it will happen. And then we will say it's all the EUs fault, and there are plenty of people here who will believe that and that a catastrophic political failure shows that are in fact strong and resolute, **** the job losses, **** the inflation, **** other people's suffering, we put the Great back in Britain (ignorant of course that Great in this context is a descriptive geographical term). Of course you will disagree with all of this, as is your right. What mystifies me is how Brexit supporters, of all their various positions, seem to be giving the government a free pass on all this. They are serving everyone, Remainers and leavers alike, appallingly. Addendum: a couple of weeks ago the Government published a 14 page paper on future customs arrangements with the EU. Pride of place was given to a proposal to electronically track goods which would mean no long waits at borders. Businesses on both sides of the channels were both baffled and sceptical about this 'innovative' proposal. Yesterday, in the USA, David Davies told a bunch of American businessmen, that actually, there would have to be a hard border with goods declared and a good proportion of them physically checked, in both directions, because the 'innovative' proposal won't work. Apparently everyone is now working hard on minimising the anticipated delays (the obvious solution, stay in the Customs Union and Single Market, may occur to him at some stage). And we call the EU vindictive because they get pissed off with our government presenting them with patent hollocks, then changing its mind. All of those position papers were full of the same flimsy, ill thought out bullshit. Amateur hour. Either the civil servants who are supposed to generate these ideas are as thick as their political bosses or they are being ignored. While I am here, let's get the no deal consequences clear. We are an import dependent economy, as a glance at the balance of trade figures makes very clear. The £ will fall even further in the event of no deal, making our exports even cheaper (including tariffs). Meanwhile the imports, which we still need, will be more expensive because of the currency position and tariffs. This includes materials for the exporting businesses. So the net result is inflation, as always hitting the poorest, and lower margins for exporters. Oh yes, it also means losing the trade deals with 50 countries that we already have through being a member of the EU.
Apologies all, I have been very slow on the uptake. I keep forgetting that it's the Tory party which is representing me in the Brexit negotiation, and that the only priority for the Tory party is itself. News story in the (pro Brexit, pro Tory) Sunday Times is that Theresa May will agree a £50bn divorce bill. But she won't do it until after the Tory Party conference, because Jake Rees Mogg and his band of Little Englander throwbacks would make things difficult for her if it was public by then. The towering intellects who govern this country reckon that the bill has gone up by £30bn because of the stunningly weak domestic position of the Tory government. So David Davies has been essentially not negotiating since day one, to delay things. To be fair this suits his idle, gurning approach down to the ground. And May has personally cost the British taxpayer £30bn through her mega **** up of the election, and has now resorted to threatening her own MPs if they don't support her repeal bill. What a bunch of bastards.
It has certainly appeared that Davies has been dragging his feet. If this really is the reason it is an utter disgrace, but not a shock, sadly.
Just got up in New York Strolls? Ignore this crap and get out and enjoy yourself mate. If you have time to do MOMA, do it.
Just keeping in touch with UK politics via your informative posts, Stan. US politics is just too scary. Going to the Yankees tonight. MOMA is on the agenda too
Had lunch with an old friend yesterday. He's a senior employee with an arts logistics company - they store works of art for the owners and ship them around the world to exhibitions and the like. The imminent Brexit has paralysed their business. It needs to expand to continue to compete worldwide, yet all the unknowns about the world they will end up operating in if the UK leaves and they start needing to deal with customs, etc., for European transportation means they cannot effectively assess the risk of taking on extra staff and moving to larger premises. The other business risk they face is that the owners of the art they store and ship may well move their property to a competitor in France or Germany for storage - to make it easier to move around Europe in future. They fear losing their customer base. Until we finally leave and they actually understand what Brexit will mean to their futures, they cannot plan or grow. This is a small example (although important to the 50+ people in his company) of why we need to get on with it, work out what it will actually mean in practice or decide the country can't afford it. Instead, we get prevarication for internal political reasons that is definitely not in the interests of the nation - just some politicians who are jockeying for position within their own parties.
I've seen that, the Guardian article you have quoted and the Select Committee's report. I'm struggling to see in the latter, which is of course the source of your claim, that the House of Lords has said we owe nothing. It is a summary of the arguments put to it by various people called to answer questions. The evidence is in many cases appended. We could just as easily quote the alternative case put forward by the EU and say that the House of Lords has said that we owe £65bn at least. That would be just as inaccurate.. Is there something else I missed?
Look at reports of the sub-committees findings by two (Remain-supporting) organisations. The Guardian reported: The UK could walk away from the European Union in 2019 without paying a penny, the House of Lords has said, in a report bound to raise tensions with Brussels in the run-up to Brexit talks. The British government would have no legal obligation to either pay a €60bn (£52bn) Brexit bill mooted by the European commission or honour payments into the EU budget promised by the former prime minister David Cameron, according to analysis by the House of Lords EU financial affairs sub-committee. In a report published on Saturday, the committee argues that the British government would be on strong legal ground if it chose to leave the EU without paying anything, adding that Brussels would have no realistic chance of getting any money. The BBC reported: The UK could exit the EU without paying anything if there is no post-Brexit deal, a group of peers has claimed. The government would be in a "strong" legal position if the two-year Article 50 talks ended with no deal, the Lords EU Financial Affairs Committee said. I cannot see this could be any clearer, unless you're claiming these sources are misreporting. This is why Barnier is getting so frustrated. There are no provisions under Article 50 to make financial payments after leaving. The EU Commission is having to rely on other leverage like threatening to derail a future trade agreement and "teaching" Britain a lesson for leaving the EU (quoting Barnier yesterday). There are elements in the European Commission that actually want the talks to fail - Martin Selmeyr for example. This is why, sooner rather than later, the 27 need to take control of the talks if all 28 aren't to be damaged.
So you haven't read the Select committee's report. I suggest you do before printing hearsay as the whole gospel truth
So you are claiming that the press, including the Remain press, are misreporting it. Do us all a favour. Put the House of Lord's sub-committee's report up on here and point out where the press are misleading the public .
And anyway the government (such that it is) has already agreed to pay something, and has obligations, and even these dullards must know that a refusal to do so will definitely result in no deal. This is what Davies said in a written response to a question after Johnson's grown up 'go whistle' statement: 'On the financial settlement, as set out in the Prime Minister’s letter to President Tusk, the Government has been clear that we will work with the EU to determine a fair settlement of the UK’s rights and obligations as a departing member state, in accordance with the law and in the spirit of our continuing partnership. 'The Government recognises that the UK has obligations to the EU, and the EU obligations to the UK, that will survive the UK’s withdrawal—and that these need to be resolved. ' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nts-UK-pay-money-EU-Brexit.html#ixzz4rhOuKcvm Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
The people charged with representing the interests of the UK (if only they would, instead of just using their position to represent themselves) can actually do whatever they want regarding negotiations over Brexit. Mrs May would like Parliament (and in particular, her own MPs) to rubber stamp that permission and give up any oversight that we, the people, deserve. We could just stop working with other countries and "leave" by walking away. In effect, becoming a rogue state that defaults on its obligations and doesn't pay what it has committed to. The EU has made plans that rely, in part, on our commitments made when we were not thinking of leaving. Not a path I'd want to see us follow, as other countries will then be very wary of dealing with the UK in future and may not want to sell us the food and raw materials we need without exacting a punitive price for them.
Without any research I would guess that we could claim a share of the EUs assets, like funds in the European Investment Bank and capital assets like buildings. Also we could argue that future EU funding commitments from which the UK would benefit should be honoured. In practice we have always been a net contributor so II suppose these things would be deducted from our bill.
