I am glad the PM has made clear we will end freedom of movement and have our own migration policy on exit, as I reminded people here on this blog last week. She has also clarified the issue of a transitional Agreement. The UK has not asked for one. We still have 19 months left to negotiate a proper Agreement. Negotiating a transitional one would require prior consent to a full Agreement, then allowing discussion of how to transition from the one to the other. It is not intrinsically easier to negotiate a Transitional Agreement than a permanent Agreement, and requires consent to where the two parties are going during transition.
There are those in the Opposition, the media and business who seem to want to turn the EU/UK talks into a negotiation amongst ourselves about what we are trying to achieve. This is damaging to the UK’s official negotiating strategy, as it leads some in the EU to think that if they delay and prod the UK will change its mind and offer to carry on with budget contributions, freedom of movement and the other items that so favour the rest of the EU. MPs and others in senior positions in the Labour party keep changing their minds about membership of the single market and customs union, long after Parliament has voted decisively both to send the Article 50 letter and to exit both the single market and Customs Union.
Let’s have another go at reminding people what the UK has already decided. The people voted to leave the EU. They did so with both official campaigns pointing out this meant leaving the single market and customs Union. They voted leave to take back control, especially of our money, our laws and our borders.
Remain supporters then forced legislation and Parliamentary votes to test out the will of the people. Parliament voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. The Commons since the election has voted to leave the single market and customs union as part of that, as was always implied in the previous Parliamentary votes.
Some Remain supporters now want to invent a Transitional Agreement, requiring the UK to go on paying budget contributions, accepting freedom of movement, and continuing to accept new EU laws. This is not government policy, and is clearly against the wishes of the people as expressed in the Referendum.
When asked why they want this, they usually argue that the other EU member states will damage their trade with us and our trade with them if we do not accept continuing features of EU membership. It is a cruel irony that the most pro EU are the most negative about the nature and likely actions of our EU partners. They are also going to be proved wrong on this as on so much else about Brexit. WTO rules work fine, if the rest of the EU really does want to damage its valuable exports of agricultural produce and cars. Their more voluminous exports will attract far more tariff than our sales to them. Under WTO rules and international law the EU cannot stop companies and individuals in its territory buying and selling things with the UK.
August 1, 2017
WTO rules do not touch services, and the UK is a service economy. It is economic madness to want to revert to WTO rules, and you are crassly irresponsible to even suggest it
Reply We will still trade in services after we have left. How do you think they can stop us?
August 1, 2017
Non tariff barriers. The things you don’t understand
Reply I understand service sector trade well as I spent many years in it! Your inability to spell out how they could impede our service trade shows you are unable to find a plausible path they could follow to do this. They have even had to back down over the silly idea that they could make all dealings in the Euro take place on the continent!
August 1, 2017
I used to work for an American industrial services company based in USA, we used to do lots of work in th EU, I can’t see the problem.
August 1, 2017
There is only a problem if the EU decided to contrive a problem for political reasons and this would not be in their best interests.
But then the EU does all sorts of things that are not in their members interests. The ERM, the EURO, the fishing policy, the renewable agenda, the EURO, CAP, the pushing of diesel vehicles above petrol, the land fill rules, the employment “protections” …… indeed almost everything they do is damaging.
August 1, 2017
A single market needs single rules, as Mrs Thatcher understood. Once we step away frim the EU norm, we accept high obstacles to our trade. A huge step back
Reply Not so. We can set rules that maximise our global trade. The EU will still want plenty of access to our lucrative market.
August 1, 2017
You are funny! The EU market is x10 bigger than ours. They hold the cards
August 2, 2017
Helen
Much of the EU is impoverished.
August 3, 2017
It’s the size of the trade, not the size of the market, that counts. They sell us more than we sell them
August 1, 2017
Helen, Then how do you suppose the rest of the world trades with the EU?
August 2, 2017
No where nearly as easily as those within the single market is the most obvious answer. As we will find out once we become a third country.
August 1, 2017
Further Reply–It is pathetic when “our trade” is equated to “trade only with the EU” ignoring as ever “trade with the rest of the World”. There was a good letter in the Torygraph today pointing out that which is not often appreciated which is simply and unarguably that of course, given the constraints applied to us in the EU with its Single Market and Customs Union, it is no surprise that a lot of our trade is (at present) with the EU. It is as if the rest of the World simply did not exist.
August 1, 2017
A huge, that is at most about 1% of our GDP, step back, equivalent to less than six months natural growth of GDP at the trend rate.
August 1, 2017
Easy. Through the use of registration & professional qualifications for instnance. Many service activities are regulated.
It is not as if you can set a sign on your doorstep proclaiming you to be a sollicitor, chartered accountant, a surgeon, surveyor…. etc and be allowed to continue.
If you take banking for instance, the EU could very well request that some services be provided from within European entities which would require capitalising banks inside the EU as opposed to the UK.
August 1, 2017
Interesting example – financial services is about the only sector where this is true as there is a common regulatory regime, which in theory (but with much difficulty) the EU could use to disadvantage UK based providers. In almost all other service sectors the single market is non existent. This is why I would favour a very detailed and dispassionate explanation by the govt of the consequences of no Deal – when you think about it they would be very limited, at least in the services sectors.
August 1, 2017
You should also include insurance as part of financial services. If you take the UK exports of services, what % is not financial related ?
Consulting ? It ?….
August 1, 2017
Yes you would have to include insurance. But it is far from clear how all this would be policed. After all lots of European purchasers of financial services currently go direct to New York. Financial services is important of course, but it’s a minority of the services total, and EU business is a minority of total financial services. And it’s a minority of that minority of a minority on which the EU will actually find it possible to penalise the UK.
What threats do you see – I’d be interested to know? Please be specific
August 1, 2017
There’s a single market in Medicine. I’m just about to appoint a French specialist consultant to NHS, with me and GMC both trusting to his French qualifications.
August 1, 2017
If you take banking for instance, the worst case would be the loss of about 0.1% of the total jobs in UK economy.
August 1, 2017
Denis c
Banking job vacancies have risen 13% since June 2016 , we won’t be losing any.
August 1, 2017
Tabulazero
It would help if you had a clue about banking. You would know that the main rules on banking are set internationally under the Basle agreements and are outside of the control of the EU. Sure the EU could impose its own banking rules but then US, Chinese, Japanese etc etc etc banks would fall foul of the same rules.
It would also help if you knew what constitutes services
Transportation and storage
Accommodation and food service activities Information and communication
Financial and insurance activities
Real estate activities
Professional, scientific and technical activities
Administrative and support service activities
Public administration and defence; compulsory social security
Education
Human health and social work activities
Arts and recreation
software
ecommerce
Accounting
Legal
Sport
TV
Film
Music
August 1, 2017
You appear confused Londoner, very confused.
The UK will continue to trade in both goods and services after we have left the EU. Services will be treated under GATS if the EU play hard ball and refuse free tariff access to the Single Market
You need to swot up and familiarise yourself
We are leaving the EU and we will be successful. The UK is flexible, liberal and open. Foreign investors know this. After we leave the EU we will see a massive flow of capital into this country. It will make Juncker and his pals quiver
August 1, 2017
With Corbyn just one shove away from the Premiership, I am not sure “Socialism in One Country” is going to be an easy sell with investors…
That or Theresa May wanting to put worker representative on company boards.
… Very France circa 1981…
August 6, 2017
Mr Corbyn has had his best chance to be PM and failed, even with considerable self inflicted assistance from the Conservatives. He is going to need to shove very hard for the next 5 years to just stay in the place he is in now…….. Opposition.
August 1, 2017
JR, paragraph two needs to rammed home to remainers in cabinet. Perhaps you and others need to write to them. Better still encourage May to to get rid of Hammond and Rudd.
August 1, 2017
It is about time the Cabinet appreciated that given the will of the people expressed on 23/6 – either get on board or go back to the back benches.
August 1, 2017
The EU Single Market also barely touches services so there isn’t much for us to lose there. In fact overall the creation of the EU Single Market has added something like 1% to UK GDP. Not 5%, as some projected beforehand, or 20%, as some like to imply, but just 1%. You may value our national sovereignty and democracy so little that you can be swayed to abandon them for the sake of maybe 1% added on our GDP, but I doubt if many others would agree when it was explained to them what a pathetically small mess of pottage you were offering.
August 1, 2017
I suspect the EU Single Market (together with the red tape, common import tariffs, greencrap and all the rest has actually damaged UK GDP considerably.
Certainly open door low paid immigration has damaged GDP per head and cut average living standards.
August 1, 2017
Just look at the trendline in the rate of GDP growth over the last 60+ years and particularly since EU membership and Internal Market – a slow drop is what the figures show!
zorro
August 1, 2017
Londoner, Even the EU accepts that its Services Directive is not fully implemented. This is especially damaging to the UK in the EU, but you don’t appear to be concerned about that.
In the run up to the Referendum I heard an insurance expert explain that he couldn’t sell insurance in Paris anyway due to existing French “non tariff barriers”. Of course the BBC interviewer didn’t follow that up, but shut him down because it didn’t fit the BBC’s (and your) Remain narrative.
August 1, 2017
Denis,
I know people who have lost their jobs at the BBC because they refused to toe the pro-EU line and the sooner that cursed lopsided corporate mouthpiece for a foreign entity is brought to book, the sooner we can have a balanced debate. They will stop at nothing to push their own agenda.
Tad
August 4, 2017
well why dont they take The BBC to a tribunal and allege exactly that? – this story sounds very fishy to me.
August 1, 2017
Easy. By telling companies if they want to trade with them they need to set up businesses in the EU. Haven’t you noticed companies are already doing this in anticipation of Brexit. More are likely to follow, including financial services and much of our car industry.
August 1, 2017
I didn’t write this, it must be another Bob.
August 1, 2017
How many butlers does the world need?
August 4, 2017
There is no FREE TRADE within the EU for Services – therefore if 80% of our trade is Services, that leaves 20% – with Canada and apparently Japan having 99% free trade – surely this all now boils down to 1%!
Whats the problem here? thats approx £2.5bn – a fraction of our EU contributions!
August 1, 2017
Two questions:
One. When will the EC Act 1972 be repealed from UK Statue?
Two. When will the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over UK territory be brought to an end?
I would like to be able to tell my grandchildren that we are now a free and sovereign nation once again alongside the USA, Australia, Canada, China, Thailand, Mexico, New Zealand, India, Saudi Arabia, DRC, Zambia, Cuba, Ecuador, Fiji, Russia, Mongolia, Mali etc etc etc
It defies belief and indeed breaks my heart that the the UK as one of the most powerful (not just militarily) nations on earth is a vassal to an organisation led by someone like Juncker.
The real enemy of the UK today is here at home. It is uplifting that decent British people who voted to leave the EU refused to be intimidated by the use of the ‘race’ and ‘xenophobe’ card during the Remain’s project fear led by our current PM and Chancellor.
The irony is of course is that without support from so called core Labour supporters (white and working class) we would now be facing a future as nothing more than a add-on province to the EU. We would be finished as a nation. Our heritage, history and independence crushed.
To say that I hold May, Hammond and other Tories of that ilk in utter contempt is an understatement. Labour is and as always been beyond contempt but we expect the Tories to offer common sense, decency and patriotism and we didn’t get that.
We are still a member though of this poisonous political entity and we look to decent Tory party MP’s to keep up the pressure on those in cabinet who cannot be trusted. Hammond still represents everything that is wrong with the current govt. He’s not a tory and he’s not too be trusted
Reply The aim is to implement Repeal and the end of the ECJ the day we leave the EU under the Article 50 procedure – end March 2019 or earlier if the negotiations break down completely.
August 1, 2017
Hammond wants high taxes on parity to the EU so he told Le , Rudd wants to keep mass immigration. If they want to stay in the EU and want higher taxes they are in the wrong party.
August 1, 2017
Duncan, Excellent comment.
Philip Hammond and Amber Rudd clearly want the UK to remain in the EU, or in part of it. They are causing such severe disruption in the exit process that the UK will get either a bad deal or a fake Brexit if they are allowed to continue. In more robust ages they would be called traitors.
The only respite from their vindictive folly will be to sack them both. Politically that is not possible given the weak and divided Tory government. They would also plot and collude on the back benches to defeat our democratic vote anyway. Rudd is the weaker, so she is the one to be sacked – pour encourager les autres. She can join her bro -etc ed.
August 1, 2017
Corbyn has made it clear we need to leave the Single Market, specifically, so that his supporters, the English working class, are not continually forced to either accept lower wages or leave employment because of the ease with which employers can import EU workers. Meanwhile, Hammond goes grovelling to foreign banksters to reassure them about access to foreign labour because Hammond does not understand that employers and specifically foreign banksters have no legitimate right to interfere in the democratic process of delivering Brexit. Banksters, already, mop up our most talented science graduates who, therefore, instead of helping to create added value at e.g. ARM Holdings before (The shares were ed) flogged them off to the Japanese, are simply assisting (word left out ed) banksters syphon money out of our economy; frankly, if Brexit drove so called ‘investment’ banking out of the UK, that would be a big plus.
August 1, 2017
I to am pleased Downing Street has made the recent statement, all be it very late in the day, but that begs the question, if Mrs May is really in control why do people like Hammond, Rudd and others continually get away with making such statements, and be bold enough to say the majority of the cabinet agree with them.
It also begs the question of Mrs May’s wisdom in choosing Hammond as the Government spokesman whilst she was away, and why she chose a majority of Remainers to serve in such positions of power within her Government.
When Mrs May gets back from her holiday she needs to get back in control quick fast and lay down some strict rules, because at the moment the tail seems to be wagging the dog.
August 1, 2017
At least one thing Hammond is doing is taking the fight on the economy to Labour. Few of the others seem able or willing to do so. Only if Labour are comprehensively trounced on the economy will the next election be won by the Conservatives. This was the huge failimg of the general election campaign.
August 1, 2017
Were I Machiavelli I would assume she was giving them enough rope to hang themselves prior to her return. Her female predecessor would have carried out their execution in person after a shortened holiday break.
August 1, 2017
She’s no Machiavelli,more like a superannuated Lady of Shallot.
August 1, 2017
alan jutson
“When Mrs May gets back from her holiday she needs to…”
Her last return from holiday resulted in a General Election. Next to that as a surprise could only be her resignation as we are planeless to start a war. Hammond seems to have inside information that is entirely whatshe intends hence his panic shouts.
August 1, 2017
Nicely summed up.
For all those that support BREXIT there is but one choice to empower Ms May and support her at every turn.
August 1, 2017
I’m afraid that May hasn’t changed her views… only her appearance. I felt that at the start and I still feel it.
Here, while she’s away, she can pretend she doesn’t agree with Hammond et al. Thereby allowing her discreet remain policy get power.
I still see nothing to persuade me out of the belief that she’s there appear to serve the electorate, yet in the pay of Europe and globalist philosophy… the dreaded new world order.
We need to make our point loudly (and get you or JRM at the helm).
Out collective psych has been through this tug of war throughout history.. we’re familiar with it. Kings and queens who wanted us to bow to the Vatican power didn’t last long.
August 1, 2017
‘There are those in the Opposition……’
And what about those in your own party, Mr Hammond for example, who are trying to undermine our Brexit position? It is rather disingenuous of you not to mention them, referring to ‘Remain supporters’ is far to vague.
It seems to me Mr Hammond has no place in Cabinet after his recent attempts to destabilise the government.
August 1, 2017
Mr Hammond appears to be a mouthpiece for the Treasury rather than the Minister in charge of the Treasury.
If he is unable to impose the government’s will on his department then we should question his position as a minister.
The Treasury was the lead on project fear.
August 1, 2017
Correct, he should be replaced by someone who is prepared to behave in a constructive way towards the Brexit negotiations instead of trying to sabotage them.
August 1, 2017
Correct, Hammond should go, and there is now a petition calling for that.
August 1, 2017
Music to my ears John……now if we can just get the rest of the cabinet singing from the same hymn sheet we might be on to something.
August 1, 2017
FOS
if we can just get the rest of the cabinet singing from the same hymn sheet
Three very big words there. If, Can, Just.
When Mother Teresa returns from her hols she has got to start feeling a few collars and explain what is required and more importantly expected from them, by not only her good self, but the country. Unless of course they are hell bent on destroying the party and ultimately the country.
August 1, 2017
Too true, but there are many on this blog that believe that Mrs May talks with forked tongue when she says “Brexit means Brexit” 🙁
August 1, 2017
TT.
…….feeling a few collars……?
She wants to be squeezing a few other things!
August 1, 2017
It is a well known fact in business and commerce that the most successful companies employ salesmen not order takers. It is a skill to keep your existing customers on board and to keep meeting their and your own expectations for continued success. Successful companies invest millions over the course of their employees working life in training to ensure both they and their customers remain in the vanguard of their particular markets.
For many companies dealing with the “safe, friendly” EU market has over the 40 odd years created the order taker mentality not only within the sales force but also the boardroom. That could well be one of many reasons why there is such a difference in what import and what we export within the single market. For many of us the single market is the unseen brake holding back the companies progress. It might well be a mental thing and is all in the mind but it is so easy just to sit back wait for the phone or mail and send back and confirm the order.
Being in the EU has blunted the leading edge of the traditional British salesman who since time began in trading circles navigated across the globe to bring the business home. The rules of marketing have changed little over the centuries. Quality product. Quality sales force. Quality customer care and support. Satisfying existing markets and creating new ones. We need to get out there, press the flesh, find out what customers and companies want, create networks building up trust and respect on both sides. Under promise and over deliver it sure is not rocket science.
All this negativity is soul destroying and totally pointless especially to the workforce who want to produce products and have pride in their work and the company. Fill the fear and do it anyway, why waste time being negative when you can use that same time to be positive and succeed? This should be the message being shouted out everyday by every member of the cabinet and the parliament, there is nothing to fear but fear itself.
There are three types of people in this new world being offered to the people of this country: Those that make it happen. Those who want it to happen. Those who will wonder what the **** happened. At this moment of time we have too many politicians and business leaders firmly entrenched in the third group.
August 1, 2017
Clearly, EU hasn’t stopped other countries from being quite successful exporters. UK business short-termism and love of an easy life is a domestic problem and has nothing to do with the EU. But after leaving the EU, the UK will find itself in rougher water with foreign investment in e.g. car mfg at risk.
August 1, 2017
The EU’s threat is not tariffs, which as you say work in the UK’s ‘favour’ (let’s not forget that free trade is always and everywhere a good thing and tariffs are mutually damaging, whoever ‘gains’) its disruption. Queues for lorries at the channel ports, uncertainty over landing rights for airlines leading to doubts on future sales, potential inability of sectors operating under common regulation (e.g. Financial Services) to continue trading in many areas, except through existing or newly established EU branches & subsidiaries etc etc.
You may be right in stating, as you have done in the past, that such disruption is nothing to fear, and / or won’t happen, but the Government has done nothing to address this specific aspect of no deal. Accordingly, terror of the “cliff edge” fosters demands for a transitional deal as a means of postponing the evil day of actual departure. The only cure is to be very specific in addressing, at length, each postulated source of disruption in the event of no deal. Only when the fear of no deal has been overcome will there be any Parliamentary majority, or national consensus, for a sensible, tough, negotiating position.
Reply The government is only too well aware of all these threats/issues/myths re no deal and is working on all of them. The day after we leave the planes will fly, the lorries with imports will come through Dover, and EU business people will trade on London’s markets!
August 1, 2017
Your confidence is heartening – but it isn’t widely shared. unless the fears of disruption are addressed specifically and allayed in the UK, the EU will continue to stoke such fears and to retain a major advantage, probably forcing us into a Norway-type arrangement of indefinite length.
August 1, 2017
On the whole it’s not the EU stoking such fears, it’s certain British people who previously spent many years arguing that we should leave the EU but now say we should only leave precisely as they dictate in their multi-stage plan or it will be a disaster for this spurious reason and that specious reason …
August 1, 2017
Yes. the parties you mentioned n seem to have overlooked Eisenhower’s dicta that its not the Plan that’s important, it’s the planning.
August 1, 2017
A transitional agreement is yet another ploy on the part of remainers. What the people voted for, and later Parliament, could not be clearer, but it has not discouraged the fifth columnists inside and outside your party and within government itself. That one of them should be a senior member of cabinet is reprehensible. He should go. His replacement with a prominent leave candidate of appropriate talent would be welcomed in the country. It would be an unequivocal statement from Mrs May that we are leaving. It might also concentrate the minds of those in the EU.
August 1, 2017
Why impose tariffs when you can achieve a much better result with non-tariffs barriers?
The end-game for the EU is simply to make sure that a large share of the Foreign Direct Investment that traditionally has been earmarked for the UK get spent on the continent instead. With it comes jobs and a tax base.
Investment decisions are long-term in nature. If you build a plant, that plant is still going to be where you built it in 30 years time.
The idea will be to leave the UK in a state of regulatory limbo, with tariff free access to the single-market but an access that can be withdrawn at short-notice thus providing limited comfort and no seat at the table to influence upcoming legislation.
From the EU’s perspective, it makes total sense and the WTO which does not cover services very well (UK’s #1 export) is ill-suited to fight this.
August 1, 2017
Been chatting with Napoleon’s ghost have you? He tried something similar with his Continental System, that failed and so will any attempt at a repeat.
August 1, 2017
I put Napoleon’s ghost in the same basket as Rule Britania.
aka: the distant past.
August 1, 2017
That doesn’t answer the point which several of us have raised before. An economic blockade would not work in the past, now or in the future particularly as our world is so much more interconnected. We will increase our trade no matter with the other 85% of the world’s economy….
zorro
August 2, 2017
It’s not a economic blockade. It’s economic competition. The EU will do its utmost to make the UK less attractive.
August 1, 2017
We don’t want tariffs, we offer to continue as now. The EU says ‘no’ as far as we can tell at the moment, so it’s up to you.
How can the EU prevent Foreign Direct Investment coming to the UK? Investors choose the UK because it is a stable country with a long standing legal and financial system, a good workforce, people who know how to trade and a fairly benign Corporate tax system. Despite what Hammond says now to try to impede Brexit, it is the government’s aim to reduce Corporation taxes further. Many EU countries (especially the newer ones) have very low output, and are effectively bust. Their people come here to earn a living.
Within living memory many of these countries have been ruled by dictators and having done that twice in the last hundred years could easily fall again. This is the main historical reason for the EU in the first place, so a bit of co-operation would be in your best interests.
August 1, 2017
If Hammond had any sense whatsoever on the 30th March 2019 I would have a Budget in which I would abolish Corporation Tax. I would also introduce a Flat Tax, thus abolishing all income tax rates. The economy would boom very quickly thereafter.
August 1, 2017
Are you suggesting something along the lines where Macron “temporarily” nationalised the French port of Saint-Nazaire so an Italian company couldn’t buy it from a Korean company?
A very clear lesson in how France and other EU countries view “free” trade and how far you cannot trust them. We will be far better off trading with the world without the poisonous guidance of the EU.
August 1, 2017
Tabulazero
Try looking up WTO restrictions and regulations on non tariff barriers
I do detest people with no knowledge of trade or business and no skin in the game lecturing us about a subject they know less than zero about
August 1, 2017
No transition. No equivocation.
I think this message needs to be shouted from the rooftops.
Any time I listen to the news on the radio, or watch it on tv, I constantly hear talk of transition.
August 1, 2017
Now you have Hague saying transition would be immensely helpful.
He is outside parliament so not much you can do about him.
However, cabinet ministers who stray off message are a different matter.
August 1, 2017
Not just “immensely helpful”!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/william-hague-brexit-eu-transition-deal-immigration-single-market-trade-union-conservative-a7870211.html
“A transitional deal is the only way to save Brexit from “an approaching disaster”, William Hague has said.”
I never trusted him.
August 1, 2017
@ Denis Cooper
I never trusted him.
I second that, a real kipper if ever there was one,
August 1, 2017
Good morning.
Clearly a case of people (remainers and their stooges) making mischief.
And that is all that needs to be said.
The destination is KNOWN. Come April 2019 the UK shall be an independent sovereign nation ‘once again’ and all that implies.
Once can be a member of the Customs Union, the EEA, Schengen and the Euro outside the EU. But what would be the point of leaving most of that only to re-ask to join some, if not all once more ? Crazy !
Neither should we pretend that it will be all plain sailing. It will not. But the path we treat will that on our own and for ourselves together. We will not have to beholden to others for scraps.
August 1, 2017
It is indeed ironic that the EU lovers are the most negative about the nature and likely actions of our EU partners. Why would they want to be rules by people like that?
As you say:- “They are also going to be proved wrong on this as on so much else about Brexit assuming that is the Tories can actually deliver.
We will however do far better still with cheaper (non green crap) energy, lower simpler taxes, far less government and far government waste, a bonfire and red tape and a huge relaxation of employment laws and other damaging regulations. Unfortunately May and Hammond was the complete opposite even to build on “EU workers rights”.
I see that the Venezuela model, much loved by Corbyn types, is ending up just as the disaster anyone sensible would have predicted. Yet it seem that only 7% of our academics voted Conservative in the last election. Most, it seems, wanted a Corbyn/SNP Venezuela in the UK too. Doubtless it is a similar proportion of school teachers, BBC staff and the state sector in general too. How can these people be so out of touch with reality and how many of the students going through their hands are taken in by this lefty lunacy?
A total lack of any Conservative vision from the soft socialist and remainers currently in charge of the Tories is mainly to blame. But no one is delivering the message that lower taxes, less government and less red tape is far better for all.
August 1, 2017
Nearly all pupils emerging from UK schools seem to have swallowed both Big Government, love of the EU & Climate Alarmism. Even the brighter ones with some understanding of logic & science (who should be able to see through these vast exaggerations).
I suppose that there were some good evolutionary reasons for children to blindly follow what their elders told them (for their own safely). When they are dripped in this quack science endlessly by the BBC, schools, government and “group think” experts they seem totally unable to question these religions despite all the abundant evidence that they are wrong or at the very least hugely exaggerating.
August 1, 2017
Reassuring once again thank you but there should be no need. I get the impression that the Treasury is working against the democratic wishes of the people and I wonder whether that is endemic across Whitehall. JR does the Civil Service need a good clear out?
August 1, 2017
The people voted ‘leave’ That means ‘leave’ The sooner we are ‘leave’ the better.
August 1, 2017
I do not like the “still have 19 months” phrase. This walks UK right into the hands of transitionistas. 7 or 8 months to complete negotiations, then 12 months to continue adjustments would make me feel more comfortable. If the Govt is planning 19 months negotiation and squabble then it is not going to be a clean Brexit.
August 1, 2017
Also, nice positive piece by Daniel Hannan,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/opinion/brexit-european-union-good-news.html
August 1, 2017
Daniel Hannan is a fantastic writer and speaker, plus he is a Conservative MEP. Why Mrs May is not using his skills beggars belief. We need more people like him to improve the moral of this country rather than have to put up with the constant preaching from the Remoaners. Unfortunately, the thing that the British do best is run the country down. We seem to have some sort of self-destruct button. We need to have more of the Dunkirk spirit that our ancestors had. To achieve this we need our own Churchill and Daniel Hannan fits the bill. Listen to some of his speeches and you will see what I mean; he makes you proud to be British.
August 1, 2017
I’ve posted here many times before that Dan should be in Parliament. If he was, he should be in the cabinet by now – alongside our host.
I’ve been to several meetings wher he has spoken and he cuts stright to the important issues and gets them over with the greatest clarity.
August 1, 2017
“Daniel Hannan is a fantastic writer and speaker, plus he is a Conservative MEP. Why Mrs May is not using his skills beggars belief. ”
Perhaps it’s because he thinks that the NHS is a bad system and prefers the eminently better USA system.
August 1, 2017
Because Hannan is a proper, rational, logical, small government Conservative and May on the other hand is a daft, wet, greencrap, big government, high taxing, religious, ex(?) remainer socialist – perhaps that is the reason?
August 2, 2017
Obamacare is a better system ? The GOP have got themselves tied up in knots over health care. I would always be wary of a healthcare system which the lawmakers recuse themselves from.
August 1, 2017
Hammond & Co are part of the Opposition; a fifth column on the side of the EU and Germany.
August 1, 2017
Indeed and Hammond is now supported by ex (?) remainer William Hague in the Telegraph today! Also wanting to (essentially) remain in the EU for ever.
August 1, 2017
The UK will not cut tax and regulations after Brexit in a bid to undercut EU rivals, Philip Hammond suggested.
Why? It is not a case of “undercutting EU rivals” it is a case of increasing productivity, creating better paid jobs and actually competing in the world markets. The main obstacles to UK productivity and higher wages is big government, endless government waste, expensive energy, over regulation, high taxes, restrictive planning and lefty dopes like Hammond and May with no vision.
That plus the real threat of Corbyn destroying the economy and robbing people and the fact that with IHT at current levels there is little point in becoming rich in the UK anyway.
August 1, 2017
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-chancellor-philip-hammond-welt-am-sonntag-uk-tax-haven-europe-a7527961.html
Mr. Hammond appears to be in two minds.
August 1, 2017
It does not need to be a “tax haven”, just reduce taxes and the size of the state sector to sensible levels from the current absurdly suffocating position. Currently it very hard to compete in world markets and deters the wealthy and hard working from living in the UK. Unless that is they want to spend the rest of their lives talking to tax planners and lawyers.
I it not sensible to have the state approaching 45% of the economy while delivering so little of any real value by way of public services. Say 2.% or even 30% of the economy. Release many of them to get real and productive jobs for a change.
August 1, 2017
Not sure why ROI and Luxembourg can have low tax regimes but it’s not acceptable for the UK to even suggest that…
August 1, 2017
Transitional deal is the remainiacs latest buzz word for delaying or preventing leaving the EU.
In the next 18 months no doubt they will get more hysterical in their pronouncements.
We should ignore them.
August 1, 2017
Ian,
Next buzz word coming down the line from the Remainders will be that old chestnut “Associate Membership” 🙁
August 1, 2017
Until Brexit happens, I won’t believe it. Too many politicians are opposed to it and dragging their feet and coming out with things like ‘we respect the will of the people’ (yeh right of course they do) but then putting obstacles up at every opportunity. Brexit means coming out of the single market, out of the customs union and an end to free movement of people. Which part of this do our ‘hard Brexit/soft Brexit’ politicians not understand? There is only one Brexit and that means getting out of all the above, no ifs, no buts.
And there should be no transitional arrangements either. May should have got on with Brexit the day after we voted for it, not a year later. If Labour get into power should another election be called, it will never happen. Maybe that’s what those squabbling Euro loving Tories are hoping for.
August 1, 2017
JoolsB
” May should have got on with Brexit the day after we voted for it, not a year later. If Labour get into power should another election be called, it will never happen. Maybe that’s what those squabbling Euro loving Tories are hoping for.”
They need to be careful of what they wish for. If Labour gets in then the country is definitely going down the pan. Personally, I would rather UKIP than Labour. At least most of their policies are sound.
August 1, 2017
Until Brexit happens, I won’t believe it either.
The forces for remain are very powerful – the BBC, half the Tories, most of the state sector, academia. some large businesses, most of the lawyers and judges …….
T May has made a complete fist of it so far. Whoever replaces May, this autumn one assumes, will have a very difficult job indeed. The main priority now is to avoid Corbyn and a Venezuela style UK. The 50% + of wet, lefty, greencrap, remainer, big government, no nation Tories are almost impossible to lead. They are just too daft.
August 1, 2017
A few hundred people at most strongly oppose Brexit. They need to read some English history to see what might happen if a tipping point is reached and the democratic process no longer works. I hope it doesn’t come to that.
August 1, 2017
She wasn’t Prime Minister the day after we voted for Brexit, the man who was Prime Minister and who had previously said that in the event of a vote for Brexit he would immediately activate Article 50 instead went to see the Queen to resign.
August 1, 2017
Will the post-brexit immigration policy include the continued lies about the number arriving?
On the radio this morning a local ex-servicemen group asking for volunteers as their funding was cut. Meanwhile the Kurds and Somalis here on asylum and our taxes will be busy doing nothing worthwhile, but probably extending their South Yorkshire crime empire.
When is one of your “Right Honourable” workmates going to admit what they are doing to this country and nation – -and for what reward?
August 1, 2017
Bigneil. Hear, hear. What is going on with our taxes is disgraceful. These asylum seekers should be sent home without any more money being spent on them.
August 1, 2017
The legacy parties have allowed many hundreds of thousands to come here from the third world for free housing, health and benefits and then invite their families as well! What a bizarre mindset they have in that Westminster bubble and they wonder why they are resented.
August 1, 2017
If Mrs. May has a successful and supportive Party conference she should replace Hammond and Rudd with two Leavers. This transition nonsense is malevolent and mischievous and just a scam to delay exit ad infinitum. As you say negotiating a transitional period is likely to be more convoluted and why bother. Italian Government sources are reported to be relaxed and even optimistic about maintaining post 3/2019 trade, German industry is beginning to realise it may already be counter productive to be hostile and so they should be. I have bought German cars for 20 years. The source of my next one could be different.
August 1, 2017
I hope you have sent personal copies of this excellent document to Hammond and Rudd.
August 1, 2017
Over the last two days I watched two moving ceremonies to commemorate the fallen of the British Empire at Passchendaele, in the 1914-18 War.
They gave their lives for the freedom of Europe.
I am finding it difficult to comprehend that 100 years later we are struggling to extract the United Kingdom from a political European Union. We entered into and fully cooperated with a trading association, that has turned out to be a Central Dictatorship (QMV), not a partnership of democratic states.
August 1, 2017
And the sheer, habitual arrogance of the Merkels and Barniers and Verhofstadts is enough to make me sick.
August 1, 2017
So many individual whips around thinking they have endless influence. We agree that many immigrant workers are now needed to keep businesses functioning ( taking into account we wouldn’t have required them in the first place if managers would have been sensible enough to use our own citizens without all the drawbacks of language and ideological differences) however our trade and money making mechanisms must be cared for and catered for .
August 1, 2017
“So many individuals whip around thinking they have endless influence”: how true!
August 1, 2017
As usual you are perfectly correct in your analysis of the ramifications of Brexit in what ever form it takes. Pointing out what will achieve the best result and at the same time satisfy the spirit an substance of the referendum vote. Also what will happen if that is not achieved. The latter will be an awful fudge that we will live to regret which the EU and UK 5th column remainers would dearly love.
I am being told not just by remainers but senior conservatives if the reports are right that a transitional arrangement is indeed what we are going to get. Deal or no deal obviously will require some sort of transitional period either by mutual agreement or by necessity but that is not the transitional agreement I suspect that everyone is talking about. That would not be a brief period of adjusting to the new circumstances as new practices and systems are put into place but one predicated on being burdened with most of the terms of membership we do not enjoy now. If we accept that then that will be the awful fudge that I stated above.
The problem at the present time as I see it is that we do not know what is in the mind of our chief negotiators and I suspect they cannot enlighten us. Because they cannot reveal their negotiating position and have yet to fully decide what their red lines are. Naturally because it is very early in the negotiating cycle and fact gathering is not complete. Also there are a multitude of factors at work many of them negative (most contrived by those working against Brexit) that must be testing the patience and resolve of government and our negotiators. Our negotiations will only succeed as far as our weakest link will allow and there are too many of them to give me confidence. In David Davis, Boris and Liam Fox I trust but it goes no further than that. If Andrea Leadsom was PM not Theresa May I would be considerably more optimistic.
August 1, 2017
Brexit policy! who needs to Brexit to see chaos for British tourists wanting to spend their hard earned money saved for their vacation in Majorca and other destinations like Amsterdam holding up tourists for 90 mins to 4 hours at the passport control. This will damage their tourism trade, reading this puts me off going and my colleague was about to book a short holiday in Amsterdam but is now reconsidering because a long delay in the airport would ruin a short break, for the moment they are willing to provoke British people with understaffed points of entry. Do we have a Minister sorting this problem out or is it to continue all over the school holiday and peak holiday season?
August 1, 2017
There are indeed problems in airports not only in Amsterdam and Majorca, but also in the USA and India. And it is not only British citizens who are being held up. Everybody, even the countries’ locals. So no need to feel singled out. The July-August transition around a week-end has been a bottleneck in airports, Channel Tunnel, Channel ferries for years.
August 2, 2017
The newspapers are reporting that it is the UK being singled out because we’re not in Europe’s Schengen System are you sure they’re misleading us?
August 1, 2017
O/T I hear that British Gas is to put up electricity prices for domestic customers by 12.5%. When the reporter on the BBC was asked why he said that even though wholesale prices for BG had dropped, they had other costs such as government policies, and transmission costs. Why don’t they spell it out to the public? We are paying for carbon floor taxes on fossil fuels, new transmission lines to take the power away from wind farms and subsidies for switching off wind farms because basically there are too many wind farms for the grid to handle now. Looks like if we had a sensible energy policy our bills might have actually come DOWN.
August 1, 2017
I don’t understand the fuss about Brexit. I accept it’s important. But not that important. I think the following subjects deserve far more attention and/or are far more arresting/fascinating:
– S*x (appropriate s*x).
– Travel (romantic, off the beaten track)
– Arts (literature/poetry, film, theatre, creative writing, galleries, painting, philosophy)
– Friends (in good and bad times).
– Family (in good and bad times).
– Sport (watching and participating)
– Wit / humour
– Does man have a soul? If so, the best way to find spiritual happiness?
– Does the divine exist. If so, how to find the Divine?
– What happens to man when he dies?
– Love (storge, philia, eros, agape).
It’s as if we’re making Brexit into a religion. When at end of day, the results of it, whether we’re in the EU, outside the EU, or half in or half out, won’t be that wow (really, they won’t – the wise Solomon said that eventually all the things of this world get a bit boring / fail to satisfy ultimately, and I’m sure he’d certainly include Brexit – or whatever side people are on – in that …). Plus the country will still be divided (unless we come to some kind of compromise that suits all) – division that could go on for years and years (and break up and destroy both the Conservative and Labour parties). The main concern, however, is shaking things up too much that the country could end up in a dangerous situation (including our need to pay off our national debt – fast, and not neglect other important national things that have nothing to do with the EU).
Regards
August 1, 2017
It is so good to see that not everyone here has the Brexit bee in their bonnet. Thanks a lot, Ed.
August 1, 2017
ED
All you have listed above are of a personal nature and many of us are concerned about these things anyway. If you cannot see why Brexit is so important then you had better get into the real world.
If this country does well after Brexit then there is no need for the country to be split. It will benefit everyone. I am not interested in whether I have to show my passport to enter France, Spain or anywhere else in the EU. I am more bothered about the fact that we have Germans and French telling us what to do. Our ancestors didn’t fight 2 world wars for this. I want my democratic rights back and our own laws and to be a sovereign nation once again, not dictated to by a load of foreigners.
August 1, 2017
‘for whatever you believe to be real or not’
– and/or how important one thing is in compared to something else.
August 2, 2017
‘If this country does well after Brexit then there is no need for the country to be split’
– This country should never be split!
But many, many people (including Conservatives) hate / loathe Brexit nearly as much as many, many s people (including Conservatives) hate / loathe the EU.
Brexiters now have their way. But instead of attacking, they will now be on the defence for the next 40 years – unless a sensible compromise can be met on this (and for me, that sensible compromise is to remain in the EU but to get it radically reformed, and i know many Brexiters agree with me, as well as many Remainers!).
August 2, 2017
Ed, David Cameron tried to get some reforms which he thought would make the EU more palatable to the British and he failed. In fact it was his failure which swung a large number of voters from supporting your kind of position to supporting withdrawal.
August 1, 2017
Ed
I usually like your posts but not this one.
Leaving the EU is way more important than all of the things on your list.
August 1, 2017
To expand Ed.
Put your list on one side of the scales.
Put the battle of good v evil on the other.
If you win the latter the former will fall into place.
August 1, 2017
Ed, many in the UK struggling to appreciate the good life and blame this on EU and London obsession. Also the EU has used the customs union to prevent people in developing countries achieving anything like the good life.
August 1, 2017
The blog today says it all . Theresa must on her return establish control and sack Hammond for undermining her behind her back . Preparing for and obtaining a clean break is the best possible solution ; the public should not continue to be confused about where we stand and what businesses of all sorts have to face .
The EU does have a major problem now ; it will not have the income to go on spending the way it has and it faces a revolt from countries like Poland and Hungary . Poverty and unemployment in some of the countries is high and the bureaucracy has no answer . It cannot continue no matter what the rhetoric from the centre says .
August 1, 2017
MPs and others in senior positions in the Labour party keep changing their minds about membership of the single market and customs union, long after Parliament has voted decisively both to send the Article 50 letter and to exit both the single market and Customs Union.
Quite. This is one of the reasons I didn’t buy into the “85% of the electorate voted for parties committed to leaving the EU” narrative. There is no unity on this. Corbyn & Co would be more than happy to sabotage UK negotiations if it meant they could achieve power. That’s their priority. The long term future of the UK is not.
Reply Labour voters voted for the Labour Manifesto which was clear about us leaving the EU/single market/customs union.
August 1, 2017
John,
Most of them didn’t read it. They just swallowed Corbyn’s unfunded bribes which the BBC gleefully broadcast ad nauseum when they weren’t broadcasting the awful bits of the Conservative manifesto (of which there were many).
I’ve no doubt the PM will stealthily deliver what she promised in the Lancaster House speech. However, the way it feels right now is that she, along with her unruly HSec and Chancellor, is holding the country, your party, and the government captive and doing precisely what she wants in order to appease everyone except the Con Party core voters. The threat of a Corbyn govt – even if the odds were 10-1 – is her security blanket.
August 1, 2017
I agree with much of this article, but I agree more strongly with the UK government’s official policy on an “implementation period”.
As I have repeatedly said, it is utterly commonplace for international treaties to include “transitional provisions”, and the reason for that is quite simple.
If the negotiating parties have agreed where they want to end up, but see that there will be practical or legal problems to sort out in some areas, then they have a choice:
1. Delay the whole treaty until those problems have been sorted out, maybe after many years (actually twelve for the 1957 Treaty of Rome setting up the EEC); or
2. Bring their treaty as a whole into legal force straight away, or as quickly as possible, but with some provisions to delay certain aspects taking full effect immediately to allow time for the identified problems to be sorted out.
So I would suggest that the alternatives for the UK would be either:
1. Get appropriate transitional provisions written into the withdrawal agreement(s) so we leave on March 29th 2019, and then sort out the practical or legal problems; or
2. Delay our withdrawal for how ever many years it takes to sort out all the practical or legal problems which have been identified.
As suggested here, the transitional provisions need not all run for the same period:
https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2017/07/henry-newman-there-will-be-a-brexit-transition-period-but-it-is-unlikely-to-be-via-the-eea-or-efta.html
“The Government should not synchronise all of its transitional plans and there are already suggestions of some instances where there will be differences. There’s a strong case for establishing an independent customs policy, faster than we depart from the Single Market. And if much is staying the same, for example with free movement largely unaffected, the Government will be keen to demonstrate change in areas such as fisheries.”
Anybody who has even slight familiarity with the EU treaties, and indeed other international treaties, will immediately understand this; transitional provisions written into treaties are drafted as the contracting parties to the treaty agree they should be drafted, there is no superior law dictating their form, and so there is no reason at all why they should all be synchronised.
I would also emphasise that having transitional provisions written into the withdrawal agreement(s) is not the same as having withdrawal agreement(s) which only take us to a supposedly transitional state, such as outside the EU but still in the EEA.
There are plenty of objections to that plan, but I will quote just one from somebody who is nevertheless strongly, even fanatically, in favour of it:
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86554
“But, with nothing better than the EEA on offer, the danger is that the transitional becomes permanent. In that, I have a great deal of sympathy with those who oppose the EEA because of the danger of it becoming permanent. Where I have less sympathy with these people is with their inability to come up with sensible alternatives that will give us something better.”
Well, there is an array of “sensible alternatives”, including transitional provisions written to the withdrawal agreement(s) as proposed, and if necessary an extension of the Article 50 negotiating period beyond the two year guideline, and/or the provisional application of the agreement(s) prior to their full ratification.
August 1, 2017
There was a good letter in the Telegraph yesterday from a businessman, essentially saying: “if a major transformation is necessary, the more rapidly and urgently it is done , the better.” there would no doubt be some disruption, but business and everyone else would rapidly adjust. This would be better than dragging the process out over a number of years.
Why has Hammond suggested that we will not reduce taxes post Brexit? We should maintain that threat until such time as the EU start talking sense and forget about unrealistic “divorce bills”. Clearly Mr Hammond has no idea of how to negotiate anything.
August 1, 2017
JR,
We have been here several times before. Regrettably, your message needs repeating often, so I’m not complaining. The remoaners are constantly employing sophistry to undermine the UK’s negotiating position, and to promote their own position of remaining in the EU, if not in name, but in fact! eg, Remaining in the SM, CU and ECJ as well as continuing to pay for the “privilege”.
The first mistake was May’s delay and the call to unite the country, which gave the remoaners encouragement. There can be no united country until Brexit is a reality! Remoaners will not allow it! They constantly trot out “we didn’t vote for this, or that ‘type’ of Brexit and EXPECT their voices to be heard.
The truth is the people voted LEAVE by a majority of 1.4 million, and Parliament endorsed that decision by a majority of several hundred! So, as far as I am concerned, the remoaners have no right, moral or otherwise, to have a say in the kind of Brexit negotiated. The ‘type’ of Brexit should be determined by discussion/argument between the representatives of the Brexiteers. – People one would hope would not sell out.
The remoaners are in a very fortunate position. If they believe the EU is such a wonderful place to live, they have a choice of 27 countries ‘flowing with milk and honey’ to which they can emigrate! Whereas, the Brexiteers have only one country in which we wish to live – here! A sovereign country, democratic and accountable – standing or falling by the wisdom of its own decisions!
So, remoaners, if you have no faith in the future of a non-EU UK, then we (I presume to speak for all Brexiteers), bid you “go forth” and reside in the EU! Should any of you encounter problems getting to the airport, or ferry, then lifts are available!
August 1, 2017
Thank you Dr JR: a clear summary as usual. Let’s hope the troublemakers in the Cabinet read your blog and take note of the replies.
There’s an oft-repeated line from Remainers that because the result of the referendum was “Leave” it was therefore wrong to have held the referendum. This seems to me an illogical and fundamentally undemocratic stance. If, as was proved, a majority wished to leave the EU, surely it was wrong to have suppressed that body of opinion all those years? In my view the real affront was in not having a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in the first place: moderate, sensible British public opinion might well have stopped the headlong rush towards the European Superstate. I seem to remember many misgivings being aired but we trusted our then leaders to do what was best for Britain, little realising that it would be such a long time until there would be any opportunity of expressing a contrary view.
August 1, 2017
Whilst Mrs May continues to allow the likes of Hammond and Rudd to undermine her policies the public will have doubts about her commitment to Brexit. She needs to deal with them with a firm hand. If they don’t toe the line then she needs to sack them. There is so much talent sitting on the back benches; people like yourself and Jacob Rees-Mogg that she could bring into her cabinet. The most important point of being a leader is to surround yourself with loyal, clever, hardworking individuals. If she has to spend time managing her own cabinet then she can’t deal with the important issues facing the country. I and many people I know were in great distress following Hammond’s media campaign last week as we thought he was speaking on behalf of the cabinet.
August 1, 2017
The Europeans are going to rub our noses in it- and that is what is going to happen.
They will rub our noses in it so bad and let us stew in it for years- possibly for a generation before extending us something like a marshall plan.
In that time there will be little movement of goods, little movement of people, no movement of services worth talking about and Capital flow between London with European capitols will all but dry up. Without saying it out aloud, they have decided on a strategy that nothing good can come from encouraging trade with UK- I hope this makes some sense.
This is the cliff edge!
Reply Alarmist nonsense. How would they manage to do that under WTO and international law? How would they enforce these bans?
August 1, 2017
It’s not in the EU’s economic or global political interests to do this. Rather, they’ll try and make life not easy for us so that others don’t follow Brexit, breaking up the Union that would cost far more than poorer relations with the UK.
And it’s not in the UK’s economic or global political interests to see a weakening of the EU’s economy and its chaotic break-up. We don’t want banana republics springing up on our doorsteps, with violence returning to N. Ireland and other parts of Europe.
August 1, 2017
Well, we should ask them, shouldn’t we?
Theresa May should give a public speech during the course of which she holds up a sheet of paper and says:
“This is a letter I am sending to the governments of all the other EU member states, copied to the heads of the various EU institutions. It’s quite short, let me read it to you: after the usual courtesies, it says very simply:
“Do you want to trade with us, or not? It is to be “Yes”, or “No”?
If you don’t want to trade with us, say that now and stop wasting our time.
But if you do want to trade with us, then stop wasting our time by refusing to negotiate sensibly on the new arrangements for that trade.”
If they really are as you say, Jack Snell, why should we want to trade with them – especially with a massive deficit – or defend them, or help them in any way?
August 1, 2017
If that is what you truly believe then it’s a few good reasons for you to go live in Brussells. The UK can do without defeatists and EU apologists like you.
August 1, 2017
“In that time [for a generation] there will be little movement of goods, little movement of people, no movement of services worth talking about and Capital flow between London with European capitols will all but dry up.”
And you think that the EU will survive all of that for a generation?!
August 1, 2017
Our kids unable to buy/rent houses long before the referendum. THAT was the cliff edge !
August 1, 2017
Reply to reply..just wait and see..it will start in the ports, the airports and the warehouses..we will see it with the fall away of cheap air travel and we will see it with the refusal for visas to travel and reside..these things are not done only at government level.,they happen mostly ar border crossings and it is the ordinary person going about his ordinary family living or business or work who will feel the full weight of pissed off customs and other government liw down officials..just wait and see.,nothing much at all to do with government policy.
So you keep on talking like you’ve been talking for decades now putting idiotic nonsense into the minds of the mindless yahoos who won’t see the writing on the wall until even when it is staring them in the face..now print that
Reply I will print it as an example of the unpleasant and dismissive approach to democracy and your fellow citizens.
August 1, 2017
Mr Snell’s comments amount simply to “let us ignore the Referendum and Remain in the EU”.
Every single Statement made here was rehearsed by Remain as ‘doomsday’ scenario and sensibly ignored byu the Electorate.
Most People Are Leave – You are the Only Remainer in the Village, Get Over It!”
August 2, 2017
Mr Snell has chosen the wrong side. There were British people who took the side of the Nazis, and others who took the side of the Soviet Union, and now we have some who take the side of the EU against their own country. Not very many, easily less than ten percent, but they make a lot of noise.
August 1, 2017
LOL… You forgot to mention that the computers will stop working on 29/03/2019 and then the food will run out in the shops and we will have to live in caves or under trees eating berries – no clothes and back to the Stone Age….. just like it was before we joined the EU in your rather bizarre alternative universe!
zorro
August 1, 2017
Wikileaks has published a huge number of emails related to Macron and his advisers with over 700 mentions of Brexit.
It appears that his advisers have warned him that he should keep the UK on board as we are vital to European defence issues as we are the most powerful and active of all European powers in that field. ( Bet that went down well with the French military ).
We can also be relied upon to a much greater extent than the Germans !!!
The 27 know that they need our intelligence assets, our defense resources and our global reach. It’s no wonder that Brussels, Hollande and Merkel were so keen to point out that they would not allow security and defence issues to be part of the negotiations !
Well, we can offer them continued support from all three of those but, to coin a phrase, they can go whistle for our money.
August 1, 2017
Many of us who voted for BREXIT did so on the understanding that the UK would move back to imperial measurement when it happened. What plans are being put in place to achieve this change and for the re-education of our children that must be urgently set in place.
August 1, 2017
There might be a little problem as most Commonwealth countries (India, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, …) and almost all other countries use the metric system for most of their uses. It might not help our future exports if we were to return to imperial units. And this specially as pubs had kept on serving drinks in pints. On most markets the traders seem to have already switched back to £/pound, pocketing 10 percent from their previous prices in £/half-kilogram (if these were kept the same, as seems to have been the case in the markets I attend).
August 1, 2017
It would nice to see commentary from disinterested observers who have up to date experience of working in particularly Brexit-exposed sectors such as financial services regulation, aviation and manufacturing weigh in, it is nigh-on impossible to find objective, knowledgeable analysis. Even the Economist has gone round the bend on the subject.
August 1, 2017
I don’t agree with agreement, i believe in countries being able to bring new laws on things if there want. then it up to the other countries and businesses to understand those laws and comply with them as business in the country with the laws will have to do. If you want sell to the eu you have to comply with rules and laws and should be the same hear. As for agreement with usa, i don’t know why you need one. You need quotas on somethings, but that all.
China sell to every country in the world without agreements, by at the same time putting restriction on imports, uk exports 9% and can see that going down, because costs going up, with gov putting them up year on year
August 1, 2017
I’m no Remoaner, but if there is no transition period, we are guaranteed to have tariff and non-tariff barriers in place for our trade with the EU on 1 April 2019, are we not? We would definitely only be trading on WTO terms, which would be a disaster for a number of industries (e.g. Agriculture). It would also be a disaster for our future political relationship with the EU and particularly with Ireland, which will be more affected than any other EU country. Even the Brexiteers in the cabinet can see this and accept that it is not logistically possible to have a free trade agreement in place before 1 April 2019. Please can you explain your logic for wilfully wanting to cause these problems?
Michel Barnier recently explained that a free trade deal with the UK is subject to a different legal basis than the exit agreement when he was interviewed by the House of Lords select committee recently. It cannot reasonably be ratified by all the member parliaments in time for Brexit on 1 April 2019. See Select Committee on the European Union: Corrected oral evidence: Scrutiny of Brexit negotiations
Towards the end of Michel Barnier’s opening statement to the select committee, he said:
…
etc ed
Reply We trade very successfully with the rest of the world on WTO terms at the moment, and make a surplus on that trade. Our agricultural account is in massive deficit with the rest of the EU, so we might improve on the position if they faced WTO tariffs on their exports to us.
August 1, 2017
“Michel Barnier recently explained … ”
And so you automatically accept what he says, taking the EU’s side against your own country, instead of looking to see what the treaties actually say and judging whether his interpretation is reasonable – which it is not.
August 1, 2017
This is very curious John. You have persistently advocated a continuation of tariff free trading. So which is it?
August 2, 2017
You are lying, Mr Redwood. There are almost no countries we trade with under WTO rules. We trade with most countries on the basis of the EU’s trade deals, which we lose after Brexit. You have been told this but you keep lying.
Reply Not so. The EU has no trade deals with a majority of countries, including no FTA with China, USA, India etc
August 2, 2017
More lies, sir. The EU has dozens of deals with China, US, Australia etc on customs cooperation, mutual recognition etc. We lose them all on brexit
August 2, 2017
On the facilitation rather than the permissibility of trade, and there is no reason why they should be allowed to lapse on our withdrawal unless the parties wish them to. So presumably you think our friends and allies on the continent will want to create rather than avoid disruption of global trade, notwithstanding the international commitments they have made towards the further facilitation of trade. Nice friends, then, maybe we should let them run our country … somebody else who has chosen the wrong side, against their own country.
August 1, 2017
“…the PM has made clear we will end freedom of movement and have our own migration policy on exit”
The PM “made clear” and it was demanded she had needed to have “made clear” several times since 23rd June 2016. Up to now it was to contradict many things she herself had said in open defiance of the electorate, the Will of the People. Recall her ” People voted for MORE control over immigration” She pumped out that until she was told to state words to the effect of “voted for TOTAL control”
Chancellor Hammond is merely speaking the words Mrs May feels unable to say herself. She and Hammond and their followers need chucking out.
August 1, 2017
Mr Redwood, another superb, sensible, clearly explained post, thank you.
However I have one simple question that I ask every time I read one of your well-argued posts – do any Cabinet Ministers read these posts and if you know this stuff, why don’t they? A follow up question always then forms in my mind – how can the Government ignore your depth of experience and common sense in this area?
My final thought is exactly why is this Conservative government making such a ham-fisted PR disaster of Brexit? The incompetence is breathtaking.
Reply I make no secret of my views and arguments when talking to Ministers!
August 1, 2017
“They [the people of the UK] voted leave to take back control, especially of our money, our laws and our borders. ”
Mr. Redwood, you are absolutely right.
But can you please add to this list our assets, viz, our fishing grounds which should never have been given away to the EU.
Thank you.
August 1, 2017
Mrs May has a policy “Brexit means Brexit But….”
Too many Bs in her lexicon of friends
August 1, 2017
The Chairman of the 1922 Committee has said they would fully back the Prime Ministter to remove members of the Cabinet who are ‘rocking the boat on policy’. Clearly the Chancellor is doing so, contradicting both the Cabinet’s strategy and Parliament’s and the Referendum’s express wishes on this most crucial of national issues Brexit. He sould be told to Resign forthwith.
August 2, 2017
Dear Tony–No–He should be fired forthwith–None of the ‘consider your position’ baloney
August 1, 2017
I am quite happy for the eu to stop all flight to the eu from the uk, only thing is, it will never happen, why, spain, portugal, greece, italy, and lot of others countries will never allow it to happen, uk plane coming to these countries would be given landing rights to uk plane the next day without having to ask. You must understand that these uk planes are carrying billion of euro to these countries every year, in spain and countries like that, they have already paid out for new passport controls to read all passenger passports to speed up new rules brought in by the eu, just in case there no agreement with the uk, so they can carry on without delays at airports for uk tourist and business people.
The same with goods, you send the goods first, and then if there is a tariff to pay you pay that later when you are sent the bill, it dose not hold up your goods unless you don’t pay the bill. As for service like banking and insurance, most companies already have office in the eu or can set one up, it does not matter if you have 10 people in the office or 10.000 people, service will carry on as always, all they talking about is trading currency & derivatives, which are being taken over by bots anyway. Banks will cut there staff by 50% soon anyway, and tax the staff pay is going to dry up, so gov has the problem not banks, banks have already cut thousands & thousands of jobs and closed hundreds of branches in the high street and is still going on to save money, its up to the gov to fined a new income.
Who would of thought gov would insist on putting all of it eggs in one basket for income, they have already had a few big crash with them and are now on their way for another one.
Just goes to show the intelligence in government and who they support.
August 1, 2017
You do not need any agreement with the eu, you already have them all, which have to be change into uk law. You are just getting rid of the treaties, so sign another lot is fool hardy. The eu cannot do what like if we left in the new year, and is wrong to say that it can. As you all know there has to be agreement with all countries in the eu before they can do anything, and that take months and year to do, and not all countries in the eu will agree to singling out the uk to be treated different to any other country in the world, because that would be seen as putting section on only the uk and will not happen, and they do do something it will take years to do, it won’t happen right away.
August 1, 2017
Thought the idea of selling gas and electricity together was so a loss or gain in either one would balance out the other? Like a supermarket losing on one item but gaining on the other with alternate opposite “roles” of each one due to season. Like comparing apples and oranges only for real.
Next month,I may compare and buy a team of hamsters running on treadmill to power my fairy light.
August 1, 2017
Re: Should our defense priorities be reviewed, if not changed?
Hi John,
I read with condemnation the letter from senior military personal in today’s Times.
Let me just say; our ability to fight a strategic battle requires more then a percentage change in MOD spending.
This I accepted many years ago!
For example; the lack of first response air superiority fighter will take more then a percentile increase in the RAF! It needs a new fighter, altogether.
But it depends on what you believe the Strategic requirements are, and in this example, we are talking F22 Raptor verse the Russian/Indian T50.
We have the Tornado, still? The American Air Force has sited it as one of the best air frames it has seen. (Quote from during the Iraq war, when we lost four aircraft to Russian missile’s).
So, it needs improvement and a new missile system, but it works!
I fully accept our focus on Brexit, and believe it should be continued.
But, the world is spending, heavily, on kit that is putting GB way behind.
Two carriers and some ground attack fighters (F35), whatever your opinion of them, is nothing close to a full strategic force, capable of meeting any challenge?
We are dependent, in full, on the USA being willing and able to respond for us. Even if the missile defense plan works, there is little we, ourselves, would beable to do.
Should we, at least recognise, talk, and challenge the current thinking?
The MOD personal quoted within the article seemed to be “begging” (my word) to be listened to.
Regards,
Roger Moore.
August 3, 2017
Roger,
Would Britain, at this present time, be able to retake the Falklands?
I would be interested in the answer to that question. In my (layman’s) opinion, it’s the acid test, whether we have the capacity to retake a distant territory.
August 3, 2017
In my opinion;
The answer to that is obvious, no.
But, if we had the carriers and F35’s, with refueling capability, etc,…
Still no!
Harrier, Vulcan bombers, etc, … All gone!
And more then that; we would not have fast jet cover!
Argentina would still have the Exocet missile system and some old fast jets, enough to do similar damage, if not more!
So, with hindsight; Argentina would target the carriers more aggressively, and I would think the cost would become far more expensive, to us.
So, on balance, still no!
We have not learnt the lessons of WWW2 yet, let alone develop a much longer range capability, to fight in the Falklands.
I recently traveled the length of Normandy, climbing all the German fortifications. If you think the Falklands was tough!
I even walked the length of Dunkirk beach (some beach).
The Falklands should not have needed any, at all, luck that is, but we want learn!
Regards,
Roger Moore.
August 5, 2017
Having checked Jane’s, Tom, it looks as if Argentina no longer has Exocet, or any fast jet too talk of.
So, they have very little capability, accept, of course, Men.
So, no the Falklands is no longer an acid test, shouldn’t be!
But, I would argue our Strategic need, at this time, does not involve any long range, oversea territory.
Unless we get dragged into North Korea, on political support grounds?
No, our Strategic aim should be defence against a preemptive strike from Russia, and our ability to respond.
And, then our contribution to NATO.
Longer term question; Trident Vs newly developed 10 mega ton missiles?
If I had confidence in this country, I would develop a new missile system, because of the amount of money set to pay for Trident and the independence it would give to our decision making.
Think of all the high skilled jobs going to the States!
Proportionality in the UN would be an interesting question! If Russia landed 100,000 troops on Blackpool beach, would we be able ( allowed) , willing, to use Trident?
I recon the USA/UN would stop us, because we would stuck in an escalation, saying that it would not be proportionate!
Regards,
RDM.
August 1, 2017
There is no cliff edge in brexit and never was, it all rumour and speculation from eu supporters with the eu politician talking it up, and there is no way the eu will interfere with uk goods going to the eu, with eu countries losing taxes and jobs, as for the eu, losing money of 9 billion pounds, that nothing also, just a drop in the bucket, that like taking 1.5 billion euros off of the six countries that receive money at the moment from the eu, it not even worth talking about.
If was not for the supporters of stay in the eu in this country, you would of already of been out. That what 2 years is about, trying to get you to change your minds on leaving the eu, with pressure put on you by the media and remain politician in the uk and eu, with businesses, it the same thing that happen in the ref, the sky is going fall in, and nothing happens, because in the rules you can leave at any time with-in the two years without a agreement, no agreement is needed.
If you continue to believe the media and what they are saying, and being told to say by in supporters then i think you easy to hood wink like D. Copper on this site, who has already thrown in the towel and is talking like a remain person now, without even putting up a fight, see the media has already done it job with him.
Nothing is going to happen to you by coming out of the eu, it all lies. Fear is their game and they play on it all the time because that the only card they have to play on you to change your minds
August 1, 2017
When are these farm subsidies going to be abolished?
What is the point of Brexit if all we get is a re-badged CAP?
August 1, 2017
While #10 denied freedom of movement would co to us after brexit they did deny the UK would stay in the customs union during a transitional period as promoted by (Hammond) in #11. Staying in the customs union until 2022 means missing the work sow of opportunity of the Trump presidency to secure an FTA with the USA covering 15% of our exports. By the time the transition period is over the ‘back of the queue’ party could be back in the White House and the chance to lock in a huge gain from brexit lost. So Hammond has to be defeated on this and run out of office. Brexit is not safe while he is the cabinet. A delegation has to visit the PM and tell her that either she goes or Hammond goes.
August 1, 2017
Another rather fanciful article by Mr Redwood. No Government policy in our history has ever succeeded against the combined wishes and the informed and evidence based advice of the Chancellor & the Treasury mandarins. These nebulous “Remainers” described herein seem to be led by Mr Hammond !
Reply Are these the same forces that inflicted the ERM on us and wanted us to join the Euro?
August 1, 2017
Just had a read of R. North blog for the first time, his name and works being referenced in a certain treatise. ( Don’t think yours was you’ll be relieved to know, but haven’t quite finished it yet ! )
Very, very wordy is R. North.
Think I’ll stick with DI Latest News and vids.
August 1, 2017
Heard that dear old Boris is down in Oz somewhere trying to drum up some special deals about mutton and wool- hope he doesn’t stray too far into the outback and get lost among the sheep seeing as how he looks a little like a sheep at the best of times- wonder what the story will be- mutton or wool or maybe both?
August 1, 2017
Traders buying bitcoin and shorting gold miners, so i will be buying gold miners and selling bitcoin soon, The bitcoin tulip mania is a ponzi, in other words it just another investment that goes up when money goes in, and down when traders all try get their money out at the same time. The smart ones have been buying gold or dollars with the profits when it go up
Reply This site is not offering investment advice.
August 1, 2017
The BBC News at Ten analysis is that the general election showed a shift towards Labour meaning that the public want soft Brexit.
Our opinion (that the Lib Dems were rejected) is not being heard.
What a disasterous PM Mrs May is.
August 2, 2017
and when John does not like comments they are just censored away, this is great for democracy and transparent debate
Reply I do not publish libels and foolish untruths. I do publish a lot of views I disagree with
August 2, 2017
Unlike many bloggers, Mr Redwood does publish opposing views. Credit due!
August 2, 2017
John, if you stuck to the facts and figures as they really stand and represented them in a consistent high quality manner, the corrections on your arguments would not be required, but they are all a bit too biased.
I am not sure where the libels and untruths come in, if that is the case than please let me know
Reply I delete those. You regularly make false allegations about me and others in your submissions
August 2, 2017
Reply, yes like the false allegations you make about European and UK economic performance usually taken out of context
Reply I use official figures and explain the time period and context. Why do you bother to come on to my blog if you think my work so worthless? This is a good example of the kind of unpleasant nonsense you send me.
August 3, 2017
Reply. A deal where we only have a WTO deal that you have been supporting and no more than that it will be very expensive for the UK supply chains and therefore for the country
August 2, 2017
Well said John: I would add only that another positive factor is Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox continuing his good work in securing future deals outside the EU.
August 2, 2017
Is the government and opposition under the impression that the EU Customs Union is a separate agreement from the TEU and TFEU treaties? It would seem that way as they appear to be under the illusion that it would be possible to leave the EU, but remain in their customs union. Associating the customs union and the EEA Single Market in this way confuses the public and I can’t help thinking that it is an attempt by those who favour a cliff-edge Brexit to avoid debate about interim Efta/EEA membership.
I don’t believe it is necessary to have formulated a final trade deal with the EU in order to begin our withdrawal via a transition phase. We should simply negotiate a long enough period (maybe up to a decade or so) in order to minimise economic damage and allow time for governments to plan the way ahead. Much of the planning work should have started before the referendum was called if not before.
The fact that no-one in government or the civil service seems to have a clue about risk assessment and the management of risk is embarrassing. If we do go over the cliff-edge I hope you realise that it will destroy the credibility of the Conservative Party for economic competence for a generation or more. Hope you are happy taking that amount of risk on your shoulders as someone who obviously has the ear of the PM and the Brexit team.
Reply There is no cliff edge
August 2, 2017
John you answer that there is no cliff edge is just a typical example of you not explaining the facts and figure properly, because no deal does mean a cliff edge, stick to the facts and reality not just what you like to think and hear
Reply It is you who just assert by going along with this fictional metaphor. What is this alleged cliff edge?
August 2, 2017
The time has come to get really brutal with the EU in these negotiations. First, point out the context.
The EU’s destination of choice is to become a German dominated Federal European SuperState, for which there is no popular mandate. Indeed, the French and Dutch electorates explicitly rejected a draft European Constitution that was put to them in referendums. The Lisbon Treaty was intended to achieve the same effect without risk of rejection. We know this because Angela Merkel publicly boasted about it.
In the modern world, free trade is a right, not a privilege. It occurs naturally and only governments can put a spanner in the works.
The European Commission is fond of saying that Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Good. The time has come to introduce linkage and insist on it. The ‘divorce bill’ to be paid will be the minimum unless free trade between the UK and the EU is maintained. Arbitration will not be accepted until such time as a mutually agreed arbitration court is agreed. European courts, including the ECJ, will not be acceptable to us.
We will pay extra if and only if we can leave the Customs Union a year early and IMPLEMENT free trade with other countries.
If this stance causes Mr Hammond to resign, good riddance.
August 3, 2017
Lindsay, this is an interesting working hypothesis, but how are we to trade with other nations even a year early unless we have trade agreements in place?
WTO rules do not cover services and technical barriers that have to be negotiated separately and therefore takes a long time to get in place?
August 3, 2017
Won’t happen again, just got the site mix up.
August 6, 2017
Hi John,
Can I raise something with you, as an MP.
I have had a Class 1 driving license since 1985, where I drove low loaders with some of the heaviest plant on British roads, including Flat beds, etc,…
I have kept it just in case I need something else to do, used it throughout my time at Uni, etc,…
Now, it turns out, to drive professionally, on British roads, you need a license, a CPC (whatever that is), a Digital Tacho course/card, and with only 6 mouths experience, you can be driving anything throughout Europe!
Why do you need these licenses?
It cannot improve the drivers, only experience will do that!
Now, I am stuck, I can’t even do Labouring because you need a license (cpcp, or something).
Talk about France being a closed shop!
This Country has become so highly structured, no one can move!
Sometimes, you MP’s (including your good self) over do things!
Now, all I can do is get into debt, instead of getting a job!
Where is the sense?
Regards,
Roger Moore.
August 6, 2017
When did this come in?
To drive a HGV class 1 for a living you now have to;
Pass your driving test every five years (45..65)!
Pass a CPC ( four tests that take more then a year).
And it doesn’t apply to EU citizens (the French have a FEMO).
Let me tell the problem Drivers have. It is Not the lack of skill, and need to be taught how to tie a load down, it is boredom! Period! Always has been, always will.
All these new licenses do nothing but create a closed shop! No doubt created by Bliar and his idiots!
Where do drivers get the money to pay for all this?
Really! I could do with using my class 1, right now (being out of work), but there is no way I could get the time or the money, debt or other wise, to pay for it!
I suppose I’d better go join the queue!
RDM.