Thought I'd start a new thread as this is going to be a major talking point this year...have not made up my mind yet...(unlike bucksfizz)....but thinking of voting for an exit as Europe is not doing Britain any good at all it seems....

And the bookies got it badly wrong last time .

A very EU coup: Martin Selmayr’s astonishing power grab

How a bureaucrat seized power in nine minutes

Jean Quatremer

10 March 2018





Martin Selmayr has always dreamed of being known beyond the Brussels bubble. His wish has now been granted, albeit in not quite the way he might have hoped. It has arrived in the form of a brilliantly executed coup that has handed this 47-year-old German bureaucrat near-total control of the EU machine.

The coup began at 9.39 a.m. on 21 February, when 1,000 journalists were sent an email summoning them to a 10.30 a.m. audience with Jean-Claude Juncker. The short notice suggested urgency — and for such a meeting to be happening at all was unusual in itself. Since becoming President of the European Commission, Juncker has held hardly any press conferences.

His news was the surprise promotion of Selmayr, his Chief of Staff, to the position of Secretary-General, in charge of the Commission’s 33,000 staff. The reaction from the journalists present was astonishment. No one had been aware of a vacancy. There was no sign that the 61-year-old Alexander Italianer had been thinking of retiring. But as Juncker announced other appointments, it quickly became clear what had happened. Selmayr had taken control, and anyone who resisted him had been unceremoniously fired. Juncker had handed the keys of the European house to his favourite Eurocrat.



The rest of the sordid story is here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/a-very-eu-coup-martin-selmayrs-astonishing-power-grab/

The bookies thought there was a 95% chance that vote remain had won the referendum hils.

379 days to go :-)

The last few still hanging on in hope that we can stay in .

Britain can sign trade deals while in single market, Brussels rules



Oliver Wright, Policy Editor | Bruno Waterfield, Brussels


March 15 2018, 12:01am,
The Times




EU negotiators have accepted the UK’s demand that it should be able to pursue an independent trade policy while remaining inside the customs union and single market.

Publicly, the EU’s negotiating guidelines still state that Britain will not be able to implement trade deals “unless authorised to do so by the union”. Behind closed doors the position taken by Michel Barnier, the bloc’s chief negotiator, is understood to have softened significantly. The latest draft of a potential transition deal says that Britain will be able to both negotiate and sign trade deals during the period.


More if you sign up: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/britain-can-sign-trade-deals-while-in-single-market-brussels-rules-grvz62qkv

Perhaps, Barnier is in a hurry to get rid of England.

Hope so.

h/t to MT across the road.




It’s Quite OK to Walk Away - A review of the UK’s Brexit options with the help of seven international databases - Michael Burrage

Worth a read if only because the Remain Camp dislikes it with a passion.



Introduction to the Summary:

The image of the EU’s Single Market as an economically successful project, and as ‘a vital national interest’ for the UK, has rested on the hopes and repeated assurances of leading politicians, on a sympathetic media, and on the occasional endorsements of individual companies, rather than on any credible evidence about its bene ts for the UK economy as a whole.

No UK government over the past 23 years has sought to monitor its impact until the rushed analysis of HM Treasury published just before the referendum. On many counts, this was an unreliable and untrustworthy document. There is, therefore, no authoritative evidence to enable one to assess the economic consequences of the government’s decision to leave the Single Market, or of any future agreement it might negotiate, or of a decision to leave with no deal and to trade with the EU under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

Seven international databases are used in this report to assess the bene ts of the Single Market for the UK, and to compare its performance with that of other EU members, and with non- members who have traded with the EU either as members of the European Economic Area (EEA), or under bilateral agreements or as WTO members.

The key metric in this report is the growth of exports, since that is what the Single Market was expected to deliver for the UK, and is often thought to have delivered. The data presented shows, by multiple measures, that this has not happened. By comparison with the Common Market decades from 1973 to 1992, the Single Market years from 1993 to 2015 have been an era of declining UK export growth to the EU.

When ranked among the top 40 fastest-growing exporters to the other founder members of the Single Market the UK comes 36th. It has been surpassed by numerous countries trading with the EU under WTO rules. Moreover, the growth of UK exports to the 111 countries, with which it has itself traded under WTO rules since 1993, has been four times greater than that of its exports to the EU.

Over the 43 years of EU membership, UK exports of goods to 11 long-standing members of the EU have grown just two per cent more, and at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) just 0.02 percentage points higher, than 14 countries trading under WTO rules. EU12 exports to each other have grown just 1 per cent more than the exports of these 14 countries.

In other words, the growth of goods exports of the UK to 11 long-standing members of the EU over these 43 years are barely distinguishable from those of 14 countries exporting under WTO rules, and they of course have not incurred any of the costs of EU membership.

Over the 23 years of the Single Market, however, exports from these same 14 countries have grown 27 per cent more than exports from the UK, at a CAGR that is 0.93 points higher. Norway and Iceland, members of the EEA, and Swi erland and Turkey, which have had bilateral agreements with EU over most of these years, have performed similarly and very much better than the EU members and the UK.



The other 170 odd pages are here: hTTp://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/itsquiteoktowalkaway.pdf

375 more days of Fred moaning to go .... as a citizen of the EU

Huff and puff again!

Enjoy your final year as a citizen of your beloved EU :-)

If you don't want mass immigration, then press the UK government to take away the reasons (read benefits) for people wanting to migrate to the UK in the first place. Like free housing, free healthcare, and free cash for bum warming the sofa each day.

Hils , can't do that without doing the same to our own.

Numbers are starting to come down now anyway so I can put up with an extra 2 years , rather that than in perpetuity.

Even Barny seemed happy today , it's happening Fred get used to it ... Blue passports all round :-)

There's more than one way of skinning a cat, Dilbert, and I've said exactly the same on this thread several times before.

So, by way of an example, you don't give housing or unemployment benefit to anyone who hasn't held a NI number for 5 years. That would allow native Brits to claim once they reach the age of 20/21, but not immigrants (from the EU or elsewhere) who turn up thinking the streets of London are paved with gold.

Cameron had 6 years before the Brexit vote to get immigration under control (that was an integral part of his 2010 election manifesto, remember?), and both he and Maggie Dismay (as the then Home Secretary) failed to fulfill their promises.

Hils , I don't think that would be allowed under EU law as it still discriminates against EU nationals.

Without controlling EU immigration then targets could never be met. Could have reduced non EU immigration but why let a load of free loaders in at the expense of say doctors and nurses just to get the figures right ?

Of course it would be allowed, Dil.

The rule is simply that all EU member states merely need to treat citizens of other member states in exactly the same way as they treat their own. Other countries manage to play the system successfully, so why are the Brits so straight-laced? For instance, you need to pay into the French social security system for 4 years before you get anything.

And discouraging the doctors and other professionals? They're not the ones who want the free benefits, so they'll still come and be net contributors regardless.

Come on Dil don't let Roger Federer's love child get the better of you!

lol :-)