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....

The Chequers Brexit compromise offers the worst of both worlds

Peter Mandelson

Sat 14 Jul 2018 20.59 BST


This half-in, half-out option will meet an abject fate


When I first looked at what had been agreed on Brexit at Chequers, I thought the plan would please nobody, but that the public might conclude that these proposals represent the best available.

In reality, it’s a spatchcocked, half-in, half-out plan and the business response was frustration: it is better trade news for goods but a disappointing hard Brexit for services. Those who voted to “take back control” were more vitriolic: it is an attempt to remain close to Europe, full of concessions and compromises, and therefore a million miles from what they expected.



In Brussels on the day of the white paper’s publication, I met officials on the British and EU sides, as well as the Irish, and found a desire to debate its content seriously. For the last two years Theresa May has elevated sovereignty over trade and she seemed to be making a timely correction, as well as reaffirming her Irish border commitment.

But as I returned home, my earlier doubts resurfaced. This plan neither allows us to receive the economic benefits of being fully inside the EU’s trade perimeter nor will it give us the freedom to market ourselves independently to the rest of the world. It is a halfway house that will leave us hanging by a thread, subject to the EU’s rules – whatever they are in future – with no say in their formulation.


More:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/14/chequers-compromise-brexit-worst-of-of-both-worlds-peter-mandelson

No Deal is now the preferred option of many.

Merkel and the others will only get serious about a deal when they are told in no uncertain terms we are going to walk away with no deal.

Then they will panic, then they will try to compromise.

But we should walk away regardless......back to WTO rules on trade. We were fine before the EEC with WTO rules.........we will be fine with them again.

Unfortunately there are 45 years of EU laws and regulations to unwind as well as some important collaboration agreements. I would be more impressed with Davies and Boris if they came out with their alternative white paper. They have been on the inside from the beginning and Boris is a writer. Put your ideas clearly down on paper and publish. Carping from the sidelines doesn't impress, without good alternatives.
As for Mandelson, he has a consulting company but refuses to names his clients. What are the odds that there are one or two financial service companies among them. While he can no doubt recognise a spatchcock when he sees one, I would take his concerns on other matters with a pinch of salt. Especially given his former friends and employment. He is very talented but has always had his own agenda.

Nicked from across the road, h/t to MT.



Tory rebels set up WhatsApp plot to thwart Theresa May's Brexit plan



By Christopher Hope, Chief Political Correspondent
15 July 2018 • 5:30pm



Eurosceptics have set up a “party within a party” with a highly organised whipping operation among Tory Eurosceptic MPs to try to frustrate Theresa May’s Brexit plans.

The news threatens to blow wide open the frustrations within the Conservative Party about Theresa May’s Chequers plan for trading with the European Union after Brexit.

The news has emerged on the day that Brandon Lewis, the party Chairman, and Gavin Barwell, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, hosted a conference call with senior members of the voluntary party to gauge the mood among the grassroots about the Brexit proposals.

More than 100 Eurosceptic Tory MPs are now on a WhatsApp group co-ordinated by former Brexit minister...



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/07/15/eurosceptic-tory-mps-set-party-within-party-whipping-operation/

If the above has got any legs, it's all over for treeza.

9229 - and what do they hope to achieve? ........ suicidal and opening the door wide for the labour party who want to remain; so totally bonkers, but hey ho

Can't quite remember, but wasn't it a typical tory idiot who got the UK into the mess which it is in.

I think it was one of the pillars of torysm?

A spiv like Farage or was it a choir boy icon Cameron?

It may be an interesting week watching the rats trying to leave a sinking boat and blame everyone other than themselves for their failures.

Dilbert,

How many days till the UK decide to stay in the EU?

:o)

https://order-order.com/

Presumably the other 40 something % of Daily Mirror readers didn't know who or what the Prime Minister is???

Another resignation



https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/jul/16/brexit-mays-plan-dead-say-tory-remainers-and-leavers-jointly-ahead-of-key-votes-politics-live

And Justine Greening is calling for a second referendum...

You might as well throw in the towel now and opt to stay in the EU before it gets even messier.

:o)

I think the following is a tremendous article. It appeared in my morning paper this morning. It's clearly written, easy to read and extremely thought provoking.

I conclude from reading it, that Theresa May is a strong 'remainer' and is certainly 'stitching us up'.

Deal or no deal? May chose an uninspiring fudge instead
ROGER BOOTLE
Daily Telegraph
15 JULY 2018 • 6:53PM

Theresa May’s Chequers proposal, spelt out in last week’s White Paper, represents an enormous climbdown from what she initially appeared to be aiming for, laid out clearly in her Lancaster House speech in January 2017.

In particular, by tying us in to EU regulatory standards on goods, it would make it difficult to secure Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with other countries, including the United States.

Nevertheless, you could argue that this minimal Brexit is better than nothing, and some Leavers have. But this surely depends upon what the other possibilities are. This deserves the serious analysis that Mrs May and her team have apparently not given it.

There are broadly two options. The first is to accept one of the off the shelf arrangements. The one that most closely accords with achieving a full Brexit, corresponding to what people voted for two years ago, is the recently agreed EU deal with Canada.

This is not ideal for us, but it is pretty good. It might be possible to add some bells and whistles that extend the scope of the agreement, particularly with regard to services. This is what is known as “Canada plus”.

With or without the plus, this would give us tariff and barrier free trade between the EU and the UK while ending free movement of people, the payment of substantial sums of money to Brussels each year and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, while enabling us to sign FTAs with whoever we wanted to.

Interestingly, the EU offered us the Canada deal earlier this year but this was turned down by the Prime Minister, supposedly because it wasn’t ambitious enough and because it would not provide a solution to the supposed “problems” concerning the Irish border. Since then Mrs May’s ambitions have decayed to the delivery of abject surrender while not saying so.

As to the Irish border, it has been clear for some time that these “problems” have been manufactured by the Remain-leaning establishment precisely as a way of blocking off a full Brexit. There is no need for a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.

It is perfectly possible for goods to move freely across the border, relying on pre-registration and subsequent random checks. There is already a soft border between the Irish republic and Northern Ireland with regard to currencies, duties and tax rates. This would continue.

Of course, it is possible that the EU will not now agree to something like the Canada deal. And the clock is ticking. In that case, there is another perfectly viable option, namely “no deal”. After all, as Mrs May used to say, “No deal is better than a bad deal”. In fact, this “no deal” expression is potentially misleading.

It doesn’t mean that we couldn’t or shouldn’t have a deal on anything with the EU, including landing rights for planes, participation in various joint bodies etc. What it means is simply that we would leave the EU without an agreement on trade, and would operate under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

The WTO option is widely misunderstood. It should hold no terrors for us. We currently do the bulk of our trade with non-EU countries under WTO rules. And if we left the EU without a deal we would not have to hand over the £39 billion “divorce settlement”.

It is possible that the EU will not now agree to something like the Canada deal. And the clock is ticking.

Moreover, the WTO option leaves substantial areas of policy choice, including over what our tariffs are. We could decide to drop tariffs on particular goods but not others; for instance, on cars, which currently incur tariffs at 10 per cent, and/or on car components, where the rate is five per cent. Or we could decide, unilaterally, to drop all our tariffs to zero. We could start to negotiate FTAs immediately. Just because we fail to secure a trade deal with the EU before next March does not mean that we can never secure such a deal.

Indeed, we could put the EU “at the front of the queue” for trade deals. We would be able to conduct these negotiations without the pressures emanating from the ticking clock imposed, arbitrarily and ridiculously, under the Lisbon Treaty.

Of course, trading under WTO rules would still leave the much dreaded “trade frictions” and possible delays at the border as we lose the supposedly huge advantages of Single Market membership. But these frictions have been massively overblown by the UK establishment. WTO rules oblige members (including the EU) to facilitate frictionless trade.

John Mills, the Eurosceptic economist and Labour donor, has come up with estimates of border costs that are a fraction of the official ones. His view is especially worth noting because, unlike the civil servants behind the official view, he runs his own very successful business importing large amounts of consumer goods.

I know whose estimates I believe. Some critics will say that this is all very well for finished goods but not for the businesses that operate complex supply chains.

To listen to them you would think that these only operate within the EU. In fact there are complex supply chains operating across the world, including many countries in Asia. They seem to manage without common currencies, single markets and all the other paraphernalia so beloved by the EU. Meanwhile, umpteen countries around the world sell huge amounts into the EU without being members of the Single Market.

How do they manage to overcome those pesky barriers, I wonder.

Whatever disruptions and difficulties may occur in the immediate aftermath of a full Brexit, this does not represent the final destination. Only when FTAs are in place with a broad swathe of countries, including the US, will we be able to see the full impact.

The argument that we must accept the Chequers fudge just does not add up. Who do they think they are kidding – us or themselves? “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

Roger Bootle is chairman of Capital Economics roger.bootle@capitaleconomics.com

The problem Maggie Dismay has got, Doc, is that she's running a minority government and she's given MPs a vote on the final Brexit deal. The only deal she's likely to get through the Commons is a soft deal which looks like a betrayal of the electorate. For all Boris' and Moggy's sabre rattling, there's no way that the Commons would vote in favour of the things that the gammon are demanding.

So, I don't think she's stitching the public up as such because she's a remainer. I just think she's got her hands tied.

Shortly after Brexit, my husband and I parked up in the south of France one day. We were driving a UK registered car, and, as we got out of the car, an Irish chap approached us and started asking about the car. The conversation turned to Brexit, and, bearing in mind that Ireland themselves had a second referendum on the Lisbon (I think?) Treaty, he basically said that he thought Brexit would become protracted and that the UK would end up staying. My husband and I both said that would be a betrayal of the will of the British people, and that there would be riots on the streets if Brexit didn't happen.

Two years later on, and I'm starting to think the Irish chap might have been right.....

The Celts are blessed with foresight.

8-)

Except for Dil.

8-(

It does seem to be a bit of a shambles at the moment......nobody seems to know what or which way or how to negotiate with the EU about this blinkin' Brexit....will end with TM resigning …….I fear it's inevitable.....perhaps BJ will become PM...if not back to the polls......perhaps Noel Edmonds ought to take over......deal or no deal.....at the worse you could become the next member of the TM EU one penny club.....

I cannot see BJ ever becoming Tory Leader and am not alone with this view. Neither is the Betfair Exchange who make him only 4th favourite:

Jacob Rees-Mogg 7.6/1
Sajid Javid 8/1
Michael Gove 8.8/1
Boris Johnson 9.8/1

Out of interest, Betfair Exchange seem to feel Jeremy Corbyn is quite likely to stay on until 2020 when the odds show he is most likely to be followed by Emily Thornberry at 7.4/1

Lots of people don't seem to take into account, the fact that Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has never been a government minister, actually has a completely untarnished political ministerial history.

Not that this fact undermines his political procedural knowledge on how things should be done correctly.

As far as I am aware, there is only Anna Soubry who doesn't like him.

:-) Tee hee hee.

Exec,

One of the listed tory MP coming party leader is feasible, but I doubt any of them would be acceptable as a PM other than a short-term pre-general election.

The chance of the tories being re-elected as a government under any of their leadership is very unlikely.

(They seem cartoon characters to the public.)

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I am not certain, whether the Labour party will be elected as the governing party under JC, but think, at the moment, that it is probable.

I think E Thornberry is unlikely to be Labour party leader. She seems to lack the gravitas or awareness of her "brief" at the present time.

-=-=-=-

But there is a dearth of outstanding statesmen/women in any of the political parties in the UK at the moment.

(Although Nicola Sturgeon does fit the bill.)


-=-=-=-=

But I think a coalition government of Labour and Lib/Dems with the support of SNP is on the cards.

-=-=-