Add to that an 18% reduction in the number of Whitehall Civil Servants since 2010, and the massive workload about to land on their desks, and I can see every reason why Article 50 won't be activated for months.
Yeah. Someone posted that the Brexit leaders didn't need to have a plan because the civil service had already worked up all these contingencies. I found that hilarious. Trade agreements take years to draft, and hundreds of meetings amongst hundreds of people. There are not like, 50 trade agreements already drafted up and ready to go just in case of Brexit. No one is going to devote massive amount of resources to prepare for a dozen contingencies when those resources are already maxed out trying to do the things they need to be doing NOW. There had to be a plan to withdraw from UK in an orderly way if you were going to do it. It's quite obvious there was not even the foggiest idea of a plan, and in fact the Brexit leaders were in all likelihood hoping it wouldn't actually happen.
a prominent political leader in Switz, was asked whether the UK will get a similar EU deal to Switzerland .. he replied, "the UK will get a better deal."
I never said that they had trade agreements. No-one can plan for the trade agreement. They can however plan for contingencies' and what sort of trade deals they would want as a starting point. Like George said "We have contingency plans" and I said that the civil service would have drawn up contingency plans. All businesses have contingency plans. They don't wait for events to change things. They have plans in case of events.
You have massively misunderstood the primary role of the civil service. Their duty is to fulfill the administrative tasks that they are required to do under the current law. Collect data, distribute funds, etc. Not to make contigency plans in case of broken trade agreements. Secondly, businesses themselves don't know what to make of this, which is why the markets are in turmoil. No one has any idea whether the UK will actually withdraw, who is going to be in power, or what they want to do. The business are scrambling themselves. One of GB's bigger advantages compared to other countries was the "flexibility" of the labour market. If that's off the table, you will struggle to find investment. Contingency plans are somewhat useless in those scenarios because you are no longer calling the shots.
HSBC has confirmed that it will keep its headquarters in London despite the shock decision for the UK to leave the EU. Douglas Flint, chairman, told City executives gathered at a conference in London that HSBC would stick to its plan to keep its headquarters in the UK. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...rexit-eu-referendum-passporting-a7111236.html
Absolute fantastic choice. Why did British Leyland fail? One reason being its very poor product, marketing and relationships between the management and shop floor. Why is this Government going belly up? The poor quality of its products or ministers. Like many a PL club, it is time to look abroad for our next PM. I would try to entice Angela Merkel as she has many of the values and core beliefs of true British Conservatives like Ken Clarke.
If May does become PM her first call of duty is to see that the interests of Scotland, Gibraltar, Northern Ireland are given priority before executing Article 50. Having thought about this she should sacrifice her own long term PM by refusing to implement Article 50, risk incurring the wrath of the baying mob who want out and tell all the eurosceptics to get out of the Tory Party. But she won't because she is cowardly.
I think you are right but she must prioritise on Gibraltar, Scotland and Northern Ireland and reject implementing Article 50. Then go to Brussels to renegotiate terms, sit with the leaders of the Labour and Lib Dems and advocate a National Government to see the UK safely throught to calmer waters with her at the helm ahead of a General Election which I think the vast majority of the country would support. The only opposition would be UKIP and some rebel Tories.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-36671277 This is very sad. This wonderful event has been cancelled because of a counter protest by some thugs on Saturday. However, the greatest sadness is that Southampton City Council and the Police are allowing this event to go ahead. They should have banned it. Now the city is forever besmirched by allowing the filth of the far right to walk in the city. Shame on you Southampton City Council and Hampshire Police. If Southampton had banned this march, then obviously the counter demonstration by the so called Anti-Nazi League, another group that contains a number of undesirables, would not have gone ahead either. Senseless, senseless officials.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-36671277 Whoever allowed this march and counter march obviously didn't consider the image such an "event" will create in the minds of people elsewhere in the UK and beyond. They will see the city as a "CHAV" one and that hurts badly.
Yeah that is sad Ides. Heartbreaking in fact. This business has unleashed something ugly in the soul of our country, and I'm not sure how, collectively, we can exorcise it. A religious event ffs, cancellled out of fear of a bunch of...well you know what.
The organisers of this march could well have been the 657 crew, who are a far-right group, and have links to loyalist groups in Northern Ireland, Glasgow Rangers, so watch the banners that appear on this march. Organise the march in Southampton and it is a good excuse for a punch-up!! If the authorities who are allowing this to proceed, they are indeed very very unintelligent. Perhaps if enough people write to the Chief Constable of Hampshire, this far right march can be banned as it is a threat to health and safety.
There are fascist on both sides when these marches happen and it is usually those hiding behind the guise of acceptability that are the worst. The UAF are a very dangerous lot who go to these marches not to protest but to incite violence in the name of "what is right". It is unfortunate because instead of highlighting that these are 2 groups that both should be tackled for their actions it always comes out as the right wing ones that are the problem. This is what happens though when these left groups think that the way to tackle extreme views is to try and silence them. Freedom of speech goes 2 ways and if you limit freedom of speech you don't ever tackle the problem. You simply drive it underground where it boils into something much more extreme and nasty. What we are seeing is not something new. It is something that society/establishment chose to ignore rather than to address and if it happened now then it would have been much much nastier and much much bigger as time went on. These problems need to be out in the open now. They should have been addressed much sooner than now and pretending it isn't there is not the way to deal with such problems.
We have marches in Lincoln that are organised by East Anglian groups based in Norfolk. One of them against the building of Lincoln's first mosque which turned out as a rag tag group singing and chanting and perfectly harmless. Belittled by normal people walking past and seen for what it was. Being ignored but then the anti-fascist lot arrived and immediately caused a scene out of something that was not even being watched. They made something out of nothing and are just as bad as those they protest about.
