Mrs May had the right approach and the right slogan when she first embarked on negotiations over the UK’s exit from the EU. “No deal is better than a bad deal.” If she had stuck to that we would now either be completely out with no deal, or more likely out with a Free Trade Deal to protect EU tariff free entry to the UK market and vice versa.
Once she dropped this important statement and revealed a continuous wish to give in to most demands the EU made she left the UK unable to get any kind of decent deal. The EU perceived the UK as weak and willing to recreate many features of its membership without the votes or voice. This was all much chronicled here as elsewhere, as delay followed concession and concession followed delay.
UK voters showed their massive disapproval in the European elections which should not have been needed had we simply left as planned, and went on to confirm their clear wish to leave the EU with or without a Free Trade deal in the General election of 2019.
The new government has rightly insisted on three things . They do not wish to stay in the single market and customs union which we are still in during transition. They are not trying to recreate something like membership of the EU through a comprehensive partnership or Association Agreement. They will leave without an agreement if the EU does not want a Free Trade Agreement. As they say in vivid language, they do not want the UK to become a vassal state. The UK is not seeking any special privileges from the EU and and is only suggesting similar trade arrangements to other independent countries like Canada and Japan.
It is crucial to success that the government adheres to this sensible position. It was rightly reminding the EU of it in statements by both the Prime Minister and the Chief UK negotiator this week-end. Brexit means taking back control of our laws, our borders, our fish and our money. The UK is offering a Free Trade Agreement which is of more benefit to the EU than to us, though both would benefit from it. Instead of continued posturing and refusal to discuss this issue the EU should take advantage whilst the offer is still there. The UK government this time does have to get on with No deal if the EU does not want to talk about proposals that are mutually beneficial.
I am glad to see the government has drafted unilateral U.K. legislation to amend the Withdrawal Agreement. We need to remove bad features of that if they do not agree to by negotiation. The EU has not negotiated in good faith so we must get on and establish full U.K. self government as we wish.
September 7, 2020
Lower taxes are better than higher taxes.
September 7, 2020
The productive side of the economy, the private sector, has been bashed by the the Covid 19 measures.
The government plan seems to bash the private sector with more taxes.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have permanently lower business taxes than the EU?
September 7, 2020
Necessary to compete, not just a good idea. We need to be able to pull the considerable R and D incentives across from Ireland. We need to reduce the cost of production space to that of Germany and its eastern and southern neighbours. We need to suck in skilled immigrants, not boat people, whom we should be sending straight back. The EU are treating us as fools, just as they have for 40 years. We need finally to respond economically.
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
The UK needs no deal to get rid of the WA and PD.
Johnson should have kept his word to walk at the end of July. Not to do so shows weakness and insincerity of intention.
Traitor May claimed 108 times to leave by 29/03/2019. She never had any intention. She claimed before an election nothing had changed about social care the public did not believe her. She got rid of 20,000 police officers, crime soared and two weeks before the election a terrorist incident happened showing her incompetence and inept strategic thinking. She chose not to keep us safe to prove her wokeness. She failed to beat Jeremy Corbyn! Thankfully this allowed the DUP to stop her total treacherous capitulation.
Clarke, Letwin etc. were perfectly happy to work with extreme left Corbyn Labour to defeat the largest public mandate in history. Johnson just rewarded them!
September 7, 2020
Well said, Hope.
The WA and PD should never have been used as the basis for us leaving the EU, simply because they represented the blueprint for a vassal state Britain.
I personally think that Boris will sell us out, and all this drama and bluster is contrived. The whole process would have been speedily executed if the leader of our country had been sincere about honouring the referendum result. Boris seems to have spent his time trying to ensure we do not actually leave i.e. become free of the EU, and covering up his tracks on this.
Boris, the people of this country are far cleverer than you give them credit for. For the sake of this country I sincerely wish you would resign and hand over the reins to an experienced politician who is a genuine Brexiteer and who can be trusted to deliver what was promised to the British people.
September 7, 2020
Spot on. I’m sure May was working to an EU plan. Remainers do not change whatever reason for leaving is given.
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
Tradingeconomics.com âList of countries by Corporation Tax Rateâ will show you that there is no such thing as a EU corporation tax and the UK is already in the lowest quarter for such tax among EU countries. Only Croatia (18%), Romania (16%), Lithuania (15%), Cyprus (12.5%), Ireland (12.5%), Bulgaria (10%), Hungary (9%) have a CTR lower than the UKâs (19%).
September 7, 2020
“Level playing field” anyone??
September 7, 2020
There is not just Corporation Tax to compare there are other taxes such as
Employer’s National Insurance;
Employer’s NEST contribution;
Class 1A;
VAT;
Business Rates;
Insurance Premium Tax on all corporate essential insurances;
Comparing just one tax as Hefner has is like comparing apples with pears.
September 7, 2020
Apples with pears, indeed, as most continental countries have very different ways to deal with these various aspects. I do not doubt that you have on your own worked out a way to compare the German GRV and bAV with the French Retraite de Base and AGIRC or ARRCO or the Italian TFR and INPS … and similar in other countries.
At least (almost) anybody could understand what a Corporation Tax is.
I am waiting with bated breath to see your memorandum on the topics of taxes over Europe.
September 7, 2020
Bit sarky and bad tempered as usual hef
The point remains as a Tracey illustrated that comparing just the rate of Corporation Tax is misleading if you dont also look at all the other taxes companies pay.
September 7, 2020
I meant lower than any EU country.
Therefore 8.99999%, which would make it lower than Hungary.
September 7, 2020
any big corporations with massive activity in the UK moving enormous profits to those countries?
September 7, 2020
The amount of piss takers I am seeing who won’t go to the office because it’s too dangerous yet are behaving normally at parties, the pub and beaches, parks, cafes…
September 7, 2020
Johnson already caved in several times by extending dates after do or die promises. Johnson latest date was end of July. That passed without a murmer. He also sold out N.Ireland and broke his promise to the DUP. JR, did you think the EU did not notice? How about all the current policy U turns, do you think the EU might have noticed?
If I were the EU I would wait for him to cave as May before- 29/03/2019 108 promises to her own party to leave by that date. Though she never had intention of acting on her mandate, she was a liar. May was one of the Clarke, Letwin, Rudd, Gauke, Hammond(s) types. They should be punished not rewarded. This will cause harm to your treacherous Party.
September 7, 2020
Hope, Harsh but true. There will be a last minute cave in, I have no doubt: it’s what the UK establishment does (at least for the last half century to the EU). We will just have to wait and see how bad it is.
September 7, 2020
Should we accept anything less than was voted for?
September 7, 2020
Final end of 15th October when we leave with or without a deal.
September 7, 2020
Final date, announced today by Boris, is the 15th October, after which we leave with or without a deal.
September 7, 2020
Nick,
The point is JR needs to make proposals based on fact on what has happened to date not aspirational hope Johnson will change his spots and act differently.
He and colleagues need to force Johnson to hold a line or course of action not hope he might do so then get upset when he acts true to form and bottles/caves in, pointed out by Gove at leadership contest the EU would have watched.
They should make it clear if he accepts 60% he can pack his bags and ship out because the party will be finished.
JR needs to change stance get some balls and force Johnson’s hands. We all had to suffer three tortuous years of the lying tre heroes May and chums which Johnson just rewarded. No more suffering the Fake Tories.
September 7, 2020
+1 Nick, and to Hope also (comment below).
September 7, 2020
Read two articles in Con Woman and your confidence might be somewhat dented.
Achieving 50% of fish for U.K. from our own territorial waters is not a success, Gove using SNP to avoid no deal is not acceptable either, digital cave in fir N.Ireland border not acceptable either, annexing/giving away N.Ireland to EU totally unacceptable, caving into Merkel last October to sign wretched WA and PD not acceptable either. Paying EU ransom for countless years for countless billions totally unacceptable.
Johnson will try to make defeat look like victory will not wash. The truth will out.
September 7, 2020
The reason for the need for higher taxes is because the Chancellor and most Conservative MPs did not stand against Hancock’s kneejerk prolonged lockdown and thus the obvious damage it would do, destroying lives. The Chancellor then ran an unethical, resource immobilising furlough scheme (newspeaked as job retention scheme) and Conservative MPs did not stand up and call for a fairer, more effective and more rational approach(e.g. UBI). The Chancellor went along with Hancock and Johnson’s kneejerk policy and then kept shaking the magical money tree (with unethical policies) behind it. Covid19 was not an existential threat, the in perpetuity ZIRP response (even if there is future inflation), war time length (without war time solidarity and pent up demand) repayments is a misplaced and continued future destroying argument. The country is in a mess that politicians on all sides put us in.
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
Well, you correctly imply that many things are relative, such as good and bad.
So yes, no deal is better than a bad deal, but that is meaningless without more.
A deal could be as bad as you like, e.g. the UK has to pay a hundred billion a year for access to the Single Market, and John would be correct that no deal would be better than that.
However, paying a modest fee, and aligning with common sense product standards etc. would be a good deal, whether or not fanatics and puritans described it otherwise.
This is the all-important distinction which the latter never make.
September 7, 2020
Martin, Any business exporting to the EU, from anywhere in the world, has to align with the EU’s product standards already, as will UK businesses exporting to the EU.
Why pay a fee to do what we’d have to do anyway? More to the point, why align the whole country to the EU’s rules, when only exports to the EU need do so?
September 7, 2020
Why do we need to pay ‘a modest fee’ to allow them to sell more of their stuff to us than we sell to them? Surely common sense says that as they have a positive trade balance they should be glad to get free access to our markets. People trading with the EU will, of course align their product standards as they do for every export market in the world as they have always done. Why don’t you call for the EU align with our higher standards, such as animal husbandry, paying the same minimum wage etc. In short, where’s the level playing field?
September 7, 2020
Any deal with the Devil is a bad deal.
September 7, 2020
100% correct
September 7, 2020
If you align with “common sense product standards” you will be forced to accept any laws, regulations and directives the EU imposes, at any time in the future, that have any connection with these “common sense product standards”
Why give away the right as an independent country to decide for ourselves what we want to sell to the world?
Other major nations don’t give the EU this promise.
September 7, 2020
Why would we pay a fee for the EU to have a balance of trade surplus with us, particularly as no other nation in the world does so? A straight-forward FTA already favours the EU, and we are giving them a golden goodbye payment and our share of the EUs assets. Isn’t this enough?
September 7, 2020
Dieselgate, horse meat disguised as beef – No thank you.
As a Briefing for Britain newsletter stated: Likewise, the EUâs supposedly âworld leadingâ food standards, which often produce products with higher pathogen concentrations compared the US and which employ vastly more antibiotics, contributing to the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance. Indeed, this week the absurdity of EU regulations was amply demonstrated by the widespread disobedience of an EU law that forbids the refrigeration of eggs. Yet more reason, then, to reject protectionist calls to cripple our capacity to make trade deals with important partners on the dubious basis of concerns over food standards
September 7, 2020
How many more reasons do we need to leave? Boris needs to respect them; I wish that I could be confident that he will.
September 7, 2020
Good morning
But Theresa May MP was not a lone, she had a lot of MP’s, like Letwin, ready to work with Labour to thwart BREXIT. She never kicked them out of the Tory Party as they were clearly doing her, and the EU’s, bidding. And as Sir John alludes to, she would never have left had it not been for NF and the BXP. It was very clear after the Europarl elections that the electorate wanted out of the EU.
It was the Tories that took us in, and is the Tories that are trying to keep us as closely aligned as possible. The EU now see this and all that is happening is a tug of war between how much integration there is to be. The EU want, and are extracting, the maximum as is to be expected. They know the Tories do not want to walk. It has taken the UK more than twice as long to gain her freedom from the EU than that that was granted to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Nothing has changed since the day BEFORE the EU Referendum. And nothing will until we have a total clear out.
September 7, 2020
Indeed. Betrayal and treason at the highest levels. Boris giving Knighthoods to our serial betrayers, Clarke, Hammond, his own brother, sums up the smell from this Government. May and Oilly thinking they were so clever with their Chequers BRINO. As if no one keeps an eye on the detail. We’re not all politicos!
The former Conservative Party are in the last chance saloon.
September 7, 2020
I suspect the last chance has already gone.
September 7, 2020
The last 4.5 years just hasnât felt right, there shouldnât be such a big disconnect between our government and the people
September 7, 2020
I tend to share your cynicism. We are fed with, next weeks EU discussions are the end game, but next week never comes nor will it until all round failure in December. Failure because we compromise our sovereignty or failure because we are totally unprepared for no deal. One way to get a good deal is that it be known that you are totally prepared for no deal and WTO Rules. We and our exporting industries understand WTO Rules because 60% of our export trade is conducted under them. It is our transport industry and those who have only ever exported to the EU who need to be made familiar with them.
September 7, 2020
Agricola, If the Boris government does not capitulate to the EU, it will be the first time in half a century. Given all his other U-turns, and snowflake wokery, it’s no wonder we don’t trust him to hold firm. And of course the EU knows we have always given up in the end. What are the odds on this time being unique? Pretty low, I think.
September 7, 2020
Your last sentence is very profound
I am still surprised that not many more MP are shouting about the enactment period of the referendum
Don’t want to go over old ground but we didn’t vote for a deal we voted out
September 7, 2020
Mrs May’s deal bad. No deal better than EU’s deal. Recognition of UK as a sovereign state with no dilution and a deal on trade and financial services sensible for both sides. No deal equals trade on WTO rules and therefore changes to the information supplied with goods by electronic means, and duties payable. As there was a large inbalance of trade in the EU’s favour before Covid19 we win on duties payable. The only factor holding it back is political. The EU does not want a successful UK departure because it might encourage other members to follow us. End of story and EU in its present guise.
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
The EU has acted in bad faith and the U.K. has just accepted it and kept paying our taxes to them! Johnson claimed a deal had to be reached by end of July or would would walk- still there, still willing to give away military, still paying, still in vassalage!
September 7, 2020
It is the UK which has acted in bad faith.
Signing an international treaty and then trying renege on it within months.
Thatâs the sort of thing Russia, North Korea, Iran and China.
You have turned us into international pariahs.
September 7, 2020
No that isn’t right.
The Withdrawal Agreement committed the UK and the EU to establish a joint committee to oversee monitor and interpret the application of the Agreement.
In the event of no agreement being reached there will also by definition be no agreement over the interpretation of the Withdrawal Agreement, and its Irish Protocol, which in parts is extraordinarily vague.
PS
It isnt a treaty.
The clue is in the name.
September 7, 2020
Yeah. Except it is a legally binding intentional treaty. Lodged with the United Nations.
Negotiated by Brexiteers. Voted on by Brexiteers. Whined about by Brexiteers.
Would any of you lot like to buy double glazing? I reckon youâre mostly easily conned.
September 7, 2020
If it is treaty it would be called a treaty.
It is called an Agreement.
There is only one person easily conned and it isn’t me.
September 8, 2020
Andy, The WA was actually negotiated by Remains; voted on by Remains; and whined about by Remains. Would we buy a soiled empire from you lot? Not really. I reckon you think weâre easily conned – but we’ve resisted your Remain lies for over 4 years.
September 7, 2020
No, Andy. Acting in bad faith makes any deal void. Nothing agreed until everything agreed we were told. Is this not an EU mantra? EU has tried to salomy slice to get a trade colony. Dopey Fake Tory Govt. have resoundingly failed to achieve anything to date!
UK Remainders still doing their best for the EU.
September 7, 2020
But you said we hold all the cards. Doesnât look like it.
Reply We hold the crucial card of access to our highly lucrative market. The EU has to decide if it wants to face tariffs.
September 7, 2020
The EU play politics, not cards.
September 7, 2020
+1
So desperate for control that they get bitter and twisted by it
September 7, 2020
The EU bureaucrats negotiating have their own vested interests that in the main do not at all accord with the interest of the peoples of the EU members.
September 7, 2020
Our market is about one-tenth as lucrative as the EUâs. That is why they hold all the cards. That is why all your Brexit promises are going up in smoke. Iit must be very humiliating for you
September 7, 2020
@Conradin …Where is the smoke exactly?
Of course the EU has a bigger market, because it covers most of the European mainland — The point is and has always been, that collectively they sell us more goods than they allow us to sell to them.
If we go with a no-deal, a good sized tariff on imported BMW’s will soon get the EU begging for a real deal….. If only our politicians can continue to be strong.
September 7, 2020
That’s only theoretical, based on population numbers. In actual fact the UK is a better market because we are relatively wealthy, want and can afford to buy the products they sell whereas most of the EU countries are economic basket cases, relying on handouts and cannot afford to buy what we sell. Plus of course the better ones like France and Germany will buy more of their own products, so no, it is not the great market you suggest.
September 7, 2020
Nonsense. They sell more to use than we do to them. That is clearly what counts most.
September 7, 2020
If the EU wish to put at serious risk 15% of their trade – fine go ahead.
We can look around and work with others, the 27 will stay clobbered.
September 7, 2020
Reply to Reply :
The EU has made that choice long ago. The EU trades internally 6 times what it trades with the UK. Safeguarding the integrity of the Single-Market therefore trumps all other considerations. The EU will not therefore let the UK take advantage of itself.
You knew that of course but did not see fit to tell the voters.
September 7, 2020
Tabulazero, Having a trade deal does not jeopardise the EU’s single market. Obviously. Because the EU has major trade deals already. You knew that of course but did not see fit to admit it.
September 7, 2020
Having a trade deal gives the UK unfair and unfettered access to the single market does undermine the single market. In any case, you view is irrelevant because you left the single market and the EU makes its own rules.
Enjoy your lorry parks.
September 7, 2020
It isnt free access because WTO has tariff schedules which the EU already apply.
September 8, 2020
Andy, The EU is more than just a free trade deal. And it’s the “more than” which we voted against, and don’t want. If there is a principle involved in the EU not agreeing a Canada style trade deal with the UK, then state it. Because clearly a Canada RTA does not undermine the EU’s single market.
September 7, 2020
We do. It’s just that loads of bubble dwellers spent more time trying to stay in then get out! They think we don’t watch them and don’t understand what they’re doing! Its like watching children.
September 7, 2020
Reply to reply
Well. We were ‘fantasy island’ to the EU until the Tories tanked the car industry. That’s a lot of leverage gone.
September 7, 2020
The EU car industry has also been tanked. Negotiating power remains in the balance.
September 7, 2020
Grimsby, It appears that you Remains need to misquote and misinterpret quotes to make your (false) points. JR actually said “Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy â the UK holds most of the cards” (Guardian) – “can be” and “most” is neither all, nor a promise that it will be easy.
It clearly depended (depends) on the EU being a good neighbour and at least as friendly to the UK as the UK was to its ex-colonies. I never thought that was possible. I was convinced the EU would be intransigent, vindictive, dishonest, and grasping. But you Remains told me I was wrong. You can’t have it both ways.
September 7, 2020
They have to have it both ways or they lose. Unthinkable!
September 7, 2020
An agreement will be reached at 2300 on 31st December when everyone can claim victory but no one is satisfied.
Renege on Brexit and as a serious party your finished.
No one will lend you votes for a second time.
September 7, 2020
Last two paragraphs absolutely correct even if an alternative has to be created.
September 7, 2020
An alternative exists. Farage said in a recent interview that he had a chat with a Cabinet minister and told him that if it goes wrong and the Brexit party is re-established, they will kill the Tories this time, no deals as before.
September 7, 2020
He’s been talking to the average voter. Always a good idea, rather than assume some spad in Downing St knows what he/she is talking about. Boris certainly doesn’t. Covid has a lot to answer for.
September 7, 2020
Don’t under estimate Farage nor the voters
September 7, 2020
+1.
September 7, 2020
They are importing a second electorate.
September 7, 2020
The UK needs personally to keep up its training to be fit, healthy and strong. We value our independence and pursuing better to help ourselves and others.
We do not need a bunch of carers deciding what they think we ought to like, or insisting that we should do what they think is better for us, while they seek power of attorney to secure control of our national assets for their own purposes.
HS2 might draw the EU closer to Scotland, but HS2 is not the sort of training Britain needs to be fit for better purpose.
September 7, 2020
Correct – at 2359 on the 31st December, this government has 4 years to plan for being in ‘opposition’
We believe the âMonster Raving Loony Partyâ more than the âConservative Partyâ
September 7, 2020
The Conservatives are making a serious bid for that new Party name.
September 7, 2020
It would be better if you were truthful. We found out last week that the UK is asking for a LOT more than Canada or Japan – eg on hauliers rights
September 7, 2020
Canada and Japan do not truck goods, we and the EU do. It would make sense to keep it easy as possible.
September 7, 2020
What reason does the EU27 have to grant cabotage rights to truckers from a third country? Is the UK going to allow EU27 truckers to make money delivering goods from Bristol to Birmingham, or Newcastle to Nottingham after Brexit?
The UK is also seeking a completely quota-free, tariff-free deal, which is also something neither Canada nor Japan have.
September 7, 2020
Peter Parson, Because the third country can grant cabotage rights to truckers from the EU in return, on an equal basis.
September 7, 2020
Is the UK haulage market an equal market in terms of size and value when compared to the EU27 haulage market?
Will UK hauliers be happy with continued competition from EU27 hauliers?
September 7, 2020
Not equal. The EU is MUCH bigger than the UK. Access to its market is MUCH more valuable than access to the UKâs. Thatâs why we just laugh when Mr Frost says he wants the EU to treat the UK as a sovereign equal. China, US, yes, – the UK? You are joking, but you are going to learn a hard lesson about power in the modern world
September 7, 2020
Who is in charge?
Customers ordering goods and services or a few unelected bureaucrats in the EU trying to hold their empire together.
September 7, 2020
Indeed Michel. One only has to look at the history of cabotage rights discussions between the USA and European countries to understand that to get the EU27 to permit cabotage rights to UK hauliers, the UK will have to offer more than equivalent cabotage in the UK.
September 7, 2020
@Edward2, every country creates laws about who can and can’t operate a business under their jurisdiction as well as how any such business is allowed to operate.
Often certain requirements are also specified in services schedules which can impose certain geographic or residence requirements. This is why, for example, EasyJet set up an Austrian-based operation and transferred registration of a number of planes previously registered in the UK.
September 7, 2020
Cabotage is the latest Project Fear thing for you remainers.
Another thing to fall by the wayside as time goes on.
September 8, 2020
It depends whether these “certain requirements ” are innocent general matters or are they really designed to stop another country competing and even gaining access by placing obstacles in their path.
Protectionist and isolationist policies end up impoverishing the citizens rather than the opposite.
My worry is the EU elite are following that path.
I hope the WTO will enforce its agreements signed by the EU to stop these EU current trade policy trends.
September 8, 2020
Peter, Michel, Of course it is possible to have cabotage rights on an equal basis. It would be done on a trucks/journeys/mileage basis. The relative sizes of the EU27 and the UK are totally irrelevant.
September 7, 2020
Indeed and in both parties interests anyway.
September 7, 2020
It’s not cherry picking… it is just the UK trying to be helpful out of the kindness of its heart.
September 7, 2020
No, it’s not cherry picking, it’s an equal exchange of permissions to operate.
September 7, 2020
There is no RoRo trade between either Canada or Japan and Europe
September 7, 2020
Len Peel, It would be better if you were truthful. Hauliers don’t have “rights”, they have permissions. The EU and the UK could give each other those permissions in a fair swap. That is not asking for more.
September 7, 2020
Itâs not âa fair swapâ though – is it?
You are seeking, on behalf of UK hauliers, unrestricted access to 27 countries and a market of 450 million consumers. Without agreeing in return that our hauliers should follow the shared rules followed by hauliers of all the other countries.
In return you want to offer hauliers from the EU27 access to 1 country and a market of 65m consumers – whilst still expecting them to follow both their laws and ours.
So you are asking for more. And the EU has told you no – so get used to it.
Brexit is already dying. We will probably put it out of its misery permanently in a lorry park somewhere.
September 7, 2020
No that isnt correct.
The UK is not refusing to allow EU hauliers into the UK.
But we might if the EU decide to try to play up and stop UK lorries driving Europe.
What rules do UK hauliers refuse to follow when in Europe?
September 7, 2020
Ah, so many disputes to have, so little time eh, Ed?
September 7, 2020
Youâve opted out of the shared rules. That is what the EU is. Shared rules to make life easier. So UK hauliers who want to work in the EU now need to make sure they comply with UK AND EU rules. Before complying with U.K. rules alone was fine – but now they will need to duplicate this with the EU as U.K. certification is no longer valid.
So lorry drivers will need at least one international driving permit (IDP). Different EU countries accept different versions of the IDP so they may need two or three.
They also need a vehicle operatorâs licence from the EU, European road haulage permits and safety certificates. And theyâll need different permits for different goods – animal products, for example, require special treatment.
There will also be export licences, vehicle consignment notes, the movement reference number, a carnet etc etc etc.
The UK government has a helpful list of all the new red tape lorry drivers need. The EUâs list is even more helpful. And lorry drivers need this whether or not there is a trade deal.
Oh and, remember, you promised that Brexit would cut red tape. Just not for hauliers. Or importers. Or exporters. Or farmers. Or anyone really.
September 7, 2020
Negotiations are nearly always sorted near the deadline.
September 8, 2020
Andy, Leaving the EU means that over 87% of UK GDP no longer has to comply with EU rules. That’s cutting red tape from where I’m sitting.
September 8, 2020
Supposing you were right in principle, Andy, that the relative size of the EU27 to the UK was critical. That means you (size a principle right?) would be calling for about 3.8 million EU citizens to leave the UK. That’s because currently there are c4m EU citizens living in the UK, but less than 1m UK citizens in the EU; so 70/450 of 1 m = c150,000 EU citizens left here. I’m sure the returnees will be glad to know it’s all your fault, Andy.
September 7, 2020
The very nature of this article suggests a sell-out is on the cards. Our kind host does like a degree of front running being an insider himself though it shouldn’t surprise anyone considering this PM’s history
Johnson endorsed BLM’s politics. He’ll also endorse UK vassalage to the EU. Betrayal is what the Tory party’s been doing since they threw MT to the wolves as though the greatest PM this nation’s even seen was nothing more than a carcass.
The greatest danger to this nation’s laws, future and sanity is from within not without. All main parties have worked and continue to work hand in hand to strangle our nation in a web of oppressive laws to silence our voice to protect the two main party duopoly in Parliament
What matters to the Tory party and indeed the the virus in opposition is the protection and promotion of their own party’s future. The UK is a mere conduit for that purpose.
I hope the EU does expose Johnson for what he is and maybe then the British people will vote for a party that rejects the two main parties that have been responsible for the rise of a vicious authoritarian culture in which freedom of expression is targeted with oppressive laws and State propaganda feeds through to our every waking moment
September 7, 2020
Your reasoning is correct, but it is wishful thinking to believe things can improve, they will not. From where will an alternative party come? Farage lost all trust that he will follow through when he stood his party down at the last election. The only alternative party may be an actual offshoot from BLM, just more of the same.
September 7, 2020
I would disagree. He demonstrated that he couldn’t even negotiate with the Conservatives, backing down with no return. If there had been a Corbyn Govt then we would have had similar policies in response to Covid, except Conservatives in opposition may have actually questioned them, which they do not do now.
The Tories have been given second and third chances. Cameron walked out, May had a chance, May failed, Johnson et al came in, alas.
September 7, 2020
I hope Boris carries through and exposes this is more angry tosh exposing once again your railing against the whole political system. As ever no solutions. Easy from the comfort of your own computer.
September 7, 2020
âThe very nature of this article suggests a sell-out is on the cards.â
Certainly the sentence âIt is crucial to success that the government adheres to this sensible position.â suggests to me that there is a worry within the Conservative party that they may not do so.
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
Another hit the nail on the head post Dominic. If Boris doesn’t delivery a true Brexit then the electorate will never believe anything a Tory MP says again. I hope Farage does not back down and give way at the next election. I want another choice.
September 7, 2020
There is no sell-out Dominic. Thank God they are beginning to understand that nobody can negotiate with an Oligarchy. We are about to achieve, against all the odds, the Greatest of all Victories. No other war was about regaining Britain.
The most worrying thing I read this morning is â Meanwhile, there were hints … that Johnson & Co didnât yet grasp how much they had already signed away on Northern Ireland.â Boris also did not understand what he was doing when he âlocked down the countryâ. He has no political economy, and he did not realise what he had done on Communist China 5G, he does not realise what he is doing on HS2, etc etc
Now donât blame Cummings – heâs not the PM, and his has bust a gut to deliver a clean Brexit which is what the country voted for 7 times. Heâs delivering thanks be to God! Christopher Howarth is another low profile hero, and the great MPs on all sides of the House who never wavered. Thank you John. Whatever else you do for us, and I hope it will be much, that limbo war was the most dangerous, critical period.
You appreciate what a massive life and death battle this has been? We have been fighting for our lives for over 60 years (before the dire Heath did the very dirty deed). Itâs a tremendous victory. And itâs one that tolls the bell for the EU, AU and OWG (one world Government); because we had to give up our families, nations, and countries as the stepping stone to that hell.
September 7, 2020
Lynn, You’re much more optimistic than I am. It is possible we will escape with our independence, but 50 years shows the UK establishment has always capitulated in the end.
September 7, 2020
Not this time Nick. Hold in there. Imagine how annoyed the Remainers are: they had ALL power, media, government, corporations (ie money) and we beat them.
They are stunned, but Cummings is coming up Trumps (!) – his main indeed only mission is to deliver our clean Brexit. Not alone of course, the Hero MPs whose names must be indelible in our history – and a Statue in Parliament Sq – have played a blinder. We are getting our clean Brexit.
September 7, 2020
Unfortunately Lynn, I agree with Dominic and many other posts here today. I expect a fudge, at which stage this ex member of the Conservative party will do all in my (limited) power to bring down that party of betrayal.
September 7, 2020
BOF I was voting Labour for 20 after Maastricht to being the Tories to heel. Too late now – we have beaten the Remainers in the Party and once we get Brexit, clean and clear, we need a true lifelong Brexiteer in Downing St. to maximise the impact.
September 7, 2020
Oops, the man is called Stephen Fry, not Steven
September 7, 2020
A deal is not Brexit. Johnson like Cameron and May will betray democracy.
‘His latest article, âCountdown to endgame on a Brexit dealâ, opens with this statement: âWhen the Taoiseach MicheĂĄl Martin met Boris Johnson at Hillsborough Castle on 13 August, the British prime minister signalled he wanted a Brexit deal.â
He did not want a no-deal exit but a deal. So we now have this for a fact, that he has apparently given away the threat of no deal. This, I suggest, is confirmed by the reported sloth of UK officials in making practical arrangements for a no-deal exit, revealed in the hauliersâ complaint that they have not been consulted on no-deal preparations, that the necessary IT work is not being done, and that preparations are just not happening. ‘
https://conservativewoman.co.uk/tcws-brexit-watch-is-johnson-being-steered-towards-betrayal/
September 7, 2020
Well let’s see. Changing the stupidity of May’s agreeing to customs checks between Wales and Northern Ireland is a step in the right direction. It’s not going to work to have either EU or UK customs officers checking benign goods travelling within the UK. Nor would UK Customs be in a position to do this.
September 7, 2020
Surely, as a newly re-envigorated and sovereign country then a FTA is best for the UK, as long as it is a well balanced trade agreement offering advantages to both parties, and in general FTA are best for the World. So says the WTO and it would appear reasonable as long as there are defences against dumping, etc. A FTA is not undermining Brexit as long as the above comments apply.
A newspaper report on what may have been said at a meeting between two leaders can hardly be taken as gospel as many jounalists are less than precis and somewhat biased, pushing their own agenda. Showing a preference for a FTA is not the same as wanting a FTA at all costs. We will need to wait and see but progress so far has been comforting thanks to Lord Frost.
It has been well documented that the continental hauliers have more to lose than the UK hauliers and that Michael Gove has been working flat out to ensure that the UK is ready for trading on WTO rules. However, a little more detail (without giving the game away on the UK’s WTO strategy ) would allay the fears of the many who attempt to follow proceedings as well as exporters and hauliers who are at the sharp end.
September 7, 2020
+1
And it appears that our involvement in EUFOR carries on apace.
September 7, 2020
That is a serious concern. A truly independent nation cannot give up control of its military to a foreign power, especially our traditional enemies seeking to get their own back.
September 7, 2020
Correct â weâre definitely being sold a lemon
September 7, 2020
I am concerned that here will be a âdealâ, with some substantial concessions on the UKâs part, very close to 31 December leaving insufficient time for Parliamentary / ERG scrutiny. Boris Johnson took a long time to come down in favour of leaving the EU which may come to haunt us in the end.
September 7, 2020
Boris is not really in favour of leaving the EU, never has been. But he does understand that he is PM because he promised Brexit. So he has to deliver that. He has had to learn personally, that,you canât ânegotiateâ with a Dictator. Apparently they all do… Cameron, May, on and on.
I remember a Labour Victory and the new Agricultural Minister setting off to sort out the CAP in high hopes, because he was a Socialist so they would deal with him. He can me back, tail between his legs to announce that they would not hedge because we were British (and not because we were Tory as he thought he had understood!).
September 7, 2020
I can confirm that there will be a deal with the UK making many concessions â itâs a forgone conclusion
September 7, 2020
JR
Iâm glad to read that the zUK are writing in legislation of the WAâs bad bits. Caroline Bell (pseudonym) Civil Servant suggested that idea.
One thing that is never mentioned is taking back control of our armed forces, and I notice you didnât either. Why not? Currently our Paras are out under instruction of the EuroGenfor according to Frederick Forsyth. Are we not planning on taking back control of them?
You say, âThe UK is offering a Free Trade Agreement which is of more benefit to the EU than to us, though both would benefit from it.â
Why would we offer a FTA that is of more benefit to the EU that to ourselves? Thatâs sounds rather odd and irrational.
September 7, 2020
Having just read Dominic âs TCW link…
JR – your blog does seem rather carefully worded in places. The areas I mentioned in my other comment being one or two of them,
September 7, 2020
Agree – and reading between the lines in the article our biggest concession will be in ‘state-aid’ …..forget fisheriers that has already been sold off behind our backs
September 7, 2020
Itâs more beneficial to the EU because they sell us ÂŁ90 billion pa more than we sell them. If we trade on WTO terms, they will have to pay us ÂŁ13 billion for access to our market. Our Govt should deploy that âprofitâ by repaying our exporters any tax they pay to the EU on their exports.
Then we get free trade exports because the EU pays for it.
Peter Lilley and I cottoned onto that very early in the game.
That is why I pray for no deal of any kind.
September 7, 2020
Good Morning,
Sir John, from the above comments, and no doubt many others from elsewhere, may I suggest you inform your PCP senior colleagues that trust in the words of the PM and the Party is all used up. It’s now imperative that performance, full and complete exit from the EU, is what’s required.
If you fail to deliver, the leader of the opposition is looking rather more competent than yours.
September 7, 2020
Agreed – but we are in the final stages of a campaign and I hope that the government has a campaign plan for those stages. Two ‘lines of operation’ (LOO) need to be in the plan. First, a ‘Constitutional’ LOO, of which the legislation you mentioned is but a part. This needs to incorporate liaison with Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Yes, they might kick-off, but liaison should attempted nevertheless. Second, there should be an ‘Internal Politics’ LOO, aimed at forestalling any actions by the Remainer element of the Conservative Parliamentary Party. To that end, the government should avoid ending talks with Barnier & Co. Better to keep them running, to no great effect, than to walk out of them and give Remainers another stick with which to beat us with. So far, I would give the government an ‘A’ for the handling of these negotiations. It would have got an ‘A+’ if it had been even firmer on fishing.
September 7, 2020
It sounds like we are at the point where no Deal would be better in order to have a clear justification for dis-applying the EU’s very broad interpretation of the WA. Then we will have to see how it goes and focus on signing comprehensive FTAs with countries which don’t have a political objective to teach the UK a lesson, as the EU appears to.
It will probably be easier to get a deal after we are clearly out and can negotiate as sovereign equals and after we have got FTAs in place around the world including membership of the TPP.
I don’t want a 1970s or French style dirigiste industrial policy in the UK. But The danger of the state aid rules seems to me to be the potential for political mission creep- EU courts could decide that almost anything – tax policy for example – constitutes ‘state aid’.
September 7, 2020
It is so that Master OF all The Intelligences, Dom Khuo Ming can pick winners in the biosecurity/AI/tech innovation fields.
Zorro
September 7, 2020
The withdrawal agreement is already a binding international treaty – whether or not there is a trade deal.
September 7, 2020
It isnt a treaty.
The clue is in the name.
If there is no final agreement then the items in the WA are void.
September 7, 2020
If need be – we just break it! Signed up to by an idiot. The world understands that.
September 7, 2020
It was signed by Boris Johnson so, for once, I agree with you. Signed by an idiot.
September 8, 2020
Andy, The WA is time-limited. It expires on 31 Dec 2020. So binding only for another 4 months, eh?
September 7, 2020
No Deal, Clean Break is all anyone voted for.
September 7, 2020
+1 – 7 times!
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
All this charade of a negotiation suggests to me is that this is more about an internal struggle within the Conservative party.
At one point after the referendum it became clear that the Conservative party no longer actually stood for anything and was, in the words of Mr Hammond, a “broad church”, which was a phrase employed to describe what had slid into the status of a party without a clearly defined path that sought to appease everybody across a wide and internally incompatible spectrum.
It took the threat of Mr Farage and his Brexit party to jolt the Conservative party into the realisation that it needed to implement the people’s mandate instead of fudging and faffing, and basically pulling the wool over the eyes of the electorate.
If Mr Johnson now falls at the last instead of going through with walking away, then the Conservatives are finished, which would be a terrific shame as the party once stood for a set of values that I consider laudable.
September 7, 2020
The EU, through its negotiating team has shown it is not a respecter of the UK being an independent sovereign nation.
If any trade anywhere is conditional on the UK’s internal affairs being ruled by others, that is capitulation and surrender to a rule by dictatorship.
The only people that can make laws, rules and regulation that govern the UK are the people of the UK. We are a poor shadow of a democracy at best, making it worse will demonstrate haw really bad our political class is.
September 7, 2020
A deal based on free trade that safeguards existing relationships without requiring annual fees or adherence to anything other than product standards would be the best solution.
This should be easy as the relationships already exist and want to be protected. Non agreement will be political.
The only way to get this is to be prepared to walk away so yes no deal is better than a bad deal.
September 7, 2020
As with others here this morning I have the worst possible feeling about those that are in power. Simply, the demands by the EU of them staying in charge of how we run our lives means they don’t get it. After 4 years of delay and hindrance from the EU means any sensible person with a real interest in the UK would have walked and stopped further delays long ago.
For this ‘Clean Break’ not to have happened by now suggests game playing by government against the people of the UK
September 7, 2020
Your last sentence says it all
September 7, 2020
Surely the fact that illegals are arriving by the boat and probably plane load and that our forces ( whatâs left of them) are fully involved with putative EU army PROVES the true intentions of govt.?
September 7, 2020
the recent rhetoric is there to try to keep the voters onside.
However, the past cannot be undone, and time marches on – – perhaps the EU will persuade Boris to postpone things for ‘another year’.
September 7, 2020
No deal has always been the best deal and Boris promised if we didn’t have a free trade deal by the middle of the year he would pull out of talks and go no deal. Here we are in September and we find that Boris has let us down and we are going over all the tired old arguments again. The question is will we be betrayed again? Since I never believed in the Boris BS I will not be surprised. Angry but not surprised.
September 7, 2020
I still wonder why Mrs May switched from “no deal is … ” to a “close relationship with our European friends”.
Did she never mean the first – along with “Brexit means Brexit”, was she always just using the phrases as a smoke screen? Did she genuinely change her mind – if so, why? Was she pressurised to a new position? I wonder if we (the public) will ever know?
Whatever it was, it certainly all blew up at Chequers.
September 7, 2020
Mrs May always was a Rampant Remainer. She used the slogan to become PM so she could betray us. She thinks sheâs clever đđ and we would end up grateful that she had saved us from ourselves.
September 7, 2020
I think they just cave under pressure. Always.
So used to being ruled by Brussels …one phone call from Merkel is usually all it takes!
September 7, 2020
I think it was because after her disastrous election she sacked her advisers Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill and took on Ollie Robbins and a whole lot of remainer Conservatives including Gavin Barwell and David Lidington.. She doesn’t appear to think things herself.
September 8, 2020
Thanks all. On reflection, I favour a mix of the reasons presented by EverH and Rose.
September 7, 2020
” The UK is offering a Free Trade Agreement which is of more benefit to the EU than to us, though both would benefit from it.”
The MsM yesterday was suggestion Ursula von der Leyen was withholding the full combined text of the agreement so far from the 27.
Suggesting she was freighted of the truth and it was always about the commission staying in control of the UK as a client
September 7, 2020
“I am glad to see the government has drafted unilateral U.K. legislation to amend the Withdrawal Agreement”
More information, please! I have not seen mention of this extremely important move in the MSM.
September 7, 2020
The Withdrawal Agreement (WA) is a ratified International Treaty between the UK and the EU. To “unilaterally amend” it, is to de-facto renege on that Treaty.
The UK left the EU on the 31st of Jan this year; it is no longer an EU member state. From the 1st of Feb, the Withdrawal Agreement legally defines the current relationship between the UK and the EU, nothing else.
The WA contains an “Implementation Period” which concludes on the 31st December this year; now known as “IP Completion Date”. The Withdrawal Agreement Treaty remains fully in force after the 1st Jan 2021.
As commenters on this site rant on about libertarianism bordering on anarchism, while demanding authoritarianism bordering on totalitarianism, against any and all street protest groups. Can I suggest you have a read of :
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/1/contents/enacted . This is the Act that starts up the WA. You will read how this Act takes the HoC out of Treaty approval voting; and, tells Judges to ignore EU Case Law that has become embedded in UK Case Law, that Downing Street does not approve of.
September 7, 2020
It isnt a treaty.
Otherwise it would be called a treaty.
It is an agreement.
If there is no final agreement then most of the items in the WA become void.
The UK will trade with the EU under WTO international rules and schedules.
September 7, 2020
The verbal assurance given was “Nothing (in the A50 process, which includes a trade agreement) is agreed until everything is agreed”.
Everything not having been agreed about the UK/EU future trade agreement, the original agreement becomes null and void on 31/12/2020.
September 7, 2020
Furthermore restraining the movement of goods within a sovereign nation from supra-national actions taken is outside international law.
Suppose we tried to restrict the movement of goods within another country… say between Texas and Florida?
The idea is laughable.
September 8, 2020
Acorn, I thought you Remains kept insisting we’d left the EU, so the WA cannot mean any control of the UK by the EU. Can it? Hahaha . . . Actually the WA does enforce UK subjugation to EU law, as I and others have had to constantly tell you Remains. With which you now (belatedly) agree.
However your statement “The [WA] remains fully in force after the 1st Jan 2021” is nonsense. Art 127 of the WA states: “Unless otherwise provided in this Agreement, Union law shall be applicable to and in the
United Kingdom during the transition period” – ie: not after. The transition period ends 31 Dec 2020, thereby ending EU subjugation of the UK on 31 Dec.
September 7, 2020
If only we had a government with a shred of capability and competence. Iâm stocking up.
September 7, 2020
I hope you are right. However on the basis that Gove was the first out of the block to praise what Mrs May achieved and continued to support it plus other quislings, until her patronage turned negative when they jumped on the next horse which just happened to go in the opposite direction, I have zero confidence and will wait until I see ink on paper.
What Gove has proved is that achieving personal ambition is more important to him than what is good for the country.
September 7, 2020
Gove, Boris, May, Cameron, Rees Mogg… the next Tory Leader has to be from one of the MPs who voted against Mays deal every time. Else they are toast, even after a clean Brexit (bit like Churchill after the war – and thatâs the only thing Boris will have in common with Churchill).
September 7, 2020
Johnson signed a new or amended version of the withdrawal agreement heralding it as meeting or our needs when we all knew he was dissembling and you have now confirmed that.
If he hadnât been a vassal at the outset we wouldnât be in this mess.
September 7, 2020
All the Eu want is to keep Britain tied one way or another to there rotten corpse so they can get us back into there clutches later , Boris should walk away with no deal, we will survive we are British and if the remoaners canât handle that tough go live in your beloved Europe
September 7, 2020
We canât go and live in our beloved Europe. The Tories took that right away from us.
It means your children and grandchildren are significantly less likely to be able to spend a couple of years abroad if they like.
It means your friends who now want to retire to Spain actually now probably canât. (Unless they are rich).
It really is pathetic that your Brexit mantra has been âwe will survive.â That is not what was promised in 2016.
Do you think Leave would have won with âwe will surviveâ as a slogan – or did they only win because they lied?
September 7, 2020
That’s not right.
You can go and live work and play in Europe after we leave the EU.
Just as we did way before the EU started.
Who told you otherwise?
September 7, 2020
Andy you had rather a long time- all your adult life and more besides, but you are still here. Odd that – whats holding you back? needing to contribute to our UK state pensions?
September 7, 2020
I lived in France for two years in the mid 1990s. I lived in Italy for 2 years in the last 1990s. I returned home to the UK to care for my dying father – and I stayed after having children. After they have finished school my wife and I were hoping to retire to Italy. You stole that from us. Which I why I have no qualms in going after all of your pensions. Bye bye triple lock.
September 7, 2020
Bye bye your triple lock too.
Why won’t Italy allow you in? Is it something you said?
September 7, 2020
Nonsense.
You can still live in Italy.
Friends of my parents lived in Italy from 1969 to 1993.
Before the EU existed
September 8, 2020
I also worked in Italy for a while and like the Italians very much – which is why I’d be reluctant to wish any bitter ex-Pats on them but I’m not aware of any reason you cannot go and live there should you dislike this country so much .
September 8, 2020
Andy, Why should you be able to bully Italy into accepting you if they don’t want you?
September 7, 2020
What do we buy from the EU? It would be helpful to have a comprehensive list in the event of no deal – so we can be ready for shortages.
Cars. No problem. Plenty of British made cars and Korean.
Food. Tasteless tomatoes from Holland. French cheese (yeuk). What else?
Electricity?
White goods. I like Bosch stuff but as I only buy a washing machine, tumble drier, fridge or oven once every 10 years or so, I can stomach them being a bit more expensive.
Electrical goods. Apple or Samsung phone. Sony TV. HP computer. Bose speakers.
I canât think of much I buy that is made in the EU. What do we buy from them? Is it mostly cars?
September 7, 2020
We buy under duress – because of quotas that stop us supplying ourselves with for instance, milk.
September 7, 2020
Mike Wilson, Some, possibly most, Samsung phones are assembled in Vietnam. The cheaper Bosch dishwashers are made in Turkey. Arçelik (Turkey) owns: Beko, Grundig, Blomberg, Leisure, Elektra, Bregenz and Flavel, amongst other white goods and electronics brands. Many goods ostensibly made in the EU also have content from places like Taiwan, Vietnam, China, etc. Much machinery purporting to be from Germany is actually Chinese or elsewhere. Most computer parts and electronics are at least assembled in China. As we tried to tell the Remains, UK (and EU) supply chains are global, not confined to the EU.
EU exports to the UK (Statista, 2018):
Transport (cars) and other machinery ÂŁ183bn
Miscellaneous manufactures ÂŁ77bn
Chemicals ÂŁ58bn
Materials ÂŁ56bn
Fuels ÂŁ50bn
Food ÂŁ40bn
As long as we learn not to be besotted by brands, we can get everything from elsewhere. As indeed our declining trade with the EU illustrates.
September 7, 2020
We buy lots of things from the EU.
A third of our food comes from the EU.
About 75% of our imported medicines come from the EU.
Plastics, iron, chemicals, oil.
Can we do without EU imports? Sure. I wonât be me missing out. Prices will just go up and people who voted for Brexit wonât be able to afford these things.
September 7, 2020
Firstly
Those many European companies will want trade with us to continue.
Secondly
If the EU elite try to play up and make it difficult for these European companies there are lots of substitute world nations wanting or UK companies could see the opportunity and fill the gap.
The only losers will be the European companies who might lose the trade.
September 7, 2020
we don’t even buy many cars now!
September 7, 2020
For 3 years we have now tried to negotiate, gave in, pay up, surrender, with a whole range of sneaky proposals.
Good grief we even gave the last so called negotiator a knighthood, who then we are informed defected to Belgium.
Have we now at last realised the EU do not do trade agreements, they do politics, the whole idea is to control the people and trade inside, and as much as possible those outside as well.
We started off with a trade agreement 40 years ago, it was called the Common Market, then it changed little by little into a European Union, so they have form.
We must not compromise any more.
They have not been negotiating in good faith, so walk away, and no ÂŁ39 Billion.
September 7, 2020
We have not negotiated for three years. The trade talks started in February this year. They have been ongoing for barely 6 months – all of which has been disrupted by Covid.
Most of the period since the referendum has involved Brexiteers negotiating with themselves – and shouting at everyone else – as your failing project has come face to face with reality.
And the ÂŁ39bn has been agreed in the legally binding withdrawal agreement – an international treaty. If you break an international treaty you are like Russia, North Korea, Iran, China. Which is ironic because this government is just like all of them.
September 7, 2020
Andy
So what was Mrs May discussing with the EU then for 0ver 2-3 years, where to purchase her next pair of shoes.
The withdrawal agreement had to be negotiated, the fact that it was almost a full bodied surrender is really beside the point.
September 7, 2020
It isnt a treaty.
It is a Withdrawal Agreement
The clue is in the title.
If there is eventually no agreement then many items in the Withdrawal Agreement are void.
September 7, 2020
It’s a treaty.
Read a reliable source.
September 7, 2020
Tell me your reliable source.
September 8, 2020
No response I note.
September 7, 2020
Favourite EU saying: Nothing is agreed till all is agreed.
September 7, 2020
Edward 2
It is a signed international legal agreement and is therefore subject to international agreements and law
September 7, 2020
I agree as you say bill, it isn’t a Treaty.
That is why it is called an Agreement.
September 8, 2020
Andy, Yes, we have. Invoking Art50 begins the negotiations. How can you tell? – because Art50 itself says so. So well over 3 years of negotiations.
Most of that time has involved a minority of Leave MPs trying to stem the tide of malice of a Remain Parliament.
Any treaty can be abrogated for a variety of reasons. So abrogating the WA is perfectly valid given the bad faith of the EU (failure to recognise our sovereign independence, for example).
September 7, 2020
Indeed – but will they really do it? I am not convinced.
September 7, 2020
Well said John. It’s high time we stopped pussyfooting around and got on with leaving and establishing markets elsewhere. I can’t get my head around the fact that the EU still demand access to our waters to fish using their enormous fishing factories that are doing so much damage. Their inability to come to a friendly free trade agreement shows they are concerned we just might do better than they would like us to and encourage others to walk away too.
Perhaps once out we could sort out the illegal, economic immigrants.
September 7, 2020
The UK has asked the EU to pretty much continue trading as it did as a member, tariff-free and quota-free.
The EU has answered that this was indeed possible but would mean that the UK would pretty much have to continue following the same rules, rules which by the way apply to all member-states and make the thing actually work by ensuring that there can be free and fair competition inside the Single-Market for its participants.
Mr Redwood is now advocating that the UK renege on an international treaty its government signed less than 12 months ago and that he himself as a MP voted into law after refusing that Parliament spent time reviewing this so-called “oven-ready deal”.
This would mean that the British governmentâs word is not worth the paper it is written on. Good luck negotiating any agreement with anyone after this.
September 7, 2020
The British people know the Governmentâs word is worth squat! Else there would have been no WA (which were âinventedâ they were not part of the process of leaving). So the Government had no authority to sign an âinternational treatyâ in defiance of their explicit instructions from the Sovereigns of this country – the People.
The âinternational treaty is therefore void, and the other Party knew it from the start and colluded with the Quislings to enslave the U.K.
This history will now be written, because we have won our freedom.
September 7, 2020
And what will you do with your freedom, Lynn ?
Please specify the first EU directive you want abolished on January 1st 2021.
You surely must have thought about that, right ?
Reply Common Fisheries Policy can go first plenty of regs in that
September 7, 2020
I want to be able to point the finger at my MP and say ”don’t blame the EU – what are YOU going to do”
September 7, 2020
REACH and VATMOSS and GDPR.
Just three to start with.
September 7, 2020
international treaties are worth nothing when a party feels it is against their interest and ignores it!
September 7, 2020
It would help to make the position of the UK clearer if May and Robbins were to be put on trial for treasonous collaboration with the EU and Germany. Mooring an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Channel would also help.
September 8, 2020
We have ‘watchkeeper’ drone flying the channel – it can see the face of every person on every day
It doesn’t matter what assets we have in the channel if we welcome every illegal immigrant
September 7, 2020
Tabulazero, No, we haven’t asked to continue trading as before. We want free trade – only – we don’t need a dirigiste empire to have that free trade. If the EU doesn’t want free trade it should say so. And you should accept that outcome.
September 7, 2020
âNo, we havenât asked to continue trading as before.â
That is true. The UK want all the good bits of the Single-Market membership such as tariff-free and quota-free access or protection for its regional appellation but none of the bits its does not like such as following the same rules as every other market participants, paying for its upkeep, not undermining it with its own separate trade deals and respecting the decision of its arbiter of last resort (the ECJ).
I am really curious to know why you think 4 years on that the EU will be too dumb to notice all the above ?
September 7, 2020
What’s wrong with wanting the good bits?
Continual improvement is the way organisations improve.
The EU is stuck in the past refusing to change whilst the free nations outside its borders just carry on without it.
September 7, 2020
It’s called free loading and is usually looked down upon.
September 8, 2020
I thought it was called a sensible negotiation.
You try to get the best outcome for your side.
September 8, 2020
Tabulazero, I think you actually, but inadvertently, illustrate how bad the EU is. It’s perfectly possible to have a zero tariff free trade agreement without the enormous costs and dirigisme of the EU. In fact why not do just that – scrap the EU and have a regional RTA – none of the costs and all of the advantages.
September 7, 2020
Wrong.
The UK seeks a trade deal with the EU which suits both sides.
If no deal can be reached then we trade under WTO rules and tariffs.
Which work for many nations who trade happily with the EU
September 7, 2020
As a Leave voter I was baffled when May and David Davis made those stupid statements that we were going to have same trading arrangements without any of the obligations, and of course since then she was in full retreat. We have reset now to what was always the realistic approach, the same deal that the EU gives every other country in the world and the one that they were initially urging us to accept. This should have been easy to accomplish, knocking at an open door and fulfilling the referendum promises. However in the intervening years the EU stance has changed and they now are confident that they can use our lack of resolve to publicly humiliate us for leaving. My own preference would still be for a fair deal but now the longterm national interest is served by walking away rather than capitulating to some of the outrageous demands of the EU.
September 7, 2020
The EU tailor each of its deals to the country it is negotiating with. Simply selecting the bits the UK likes is called cherry picking and the EU will not agree to it.
At the end of the day, the UK is not automatically entitled to a trade deal with the EU. It’s for the EU to decide on which terms the UK get access to its market.
September 8, 2020
Access to EU markets is guaranteed under WTO rules which the EU are signed up to.
Are you really suggesting the EU will try to bloc the UK from selling goods and services to 27 nations?
September 8, 2020
Tabulazero, Like the EU deciding it should continue to steal our fish? That sort of cherry picking?
September 7, 2020
Had the referendum offered a choice between no deal and remain ;remain would have won .It was , as you may laughingly recall , to be the easiest negotiation ever. Theresa May could simply have achieved nothing at all without all huff and puff ,a long time ago , so we see that everything since has been a waste of time .
Congratulations on delivering the total failure you told us was not possible
September 7, 2020
The referendum was between Clean Brexit and Remain. Where did it say âA trade/association Deal or Remainâ?
September 7, 2020
It said so in Vote Leaveâs manifesto – which presumably you read because it was what you voted for.
September 7, 2020
And the Remain Manifesto said we were to remain in a transformed EU đđ.
The question is what counts, and you acknowledge that I am right by your obfuscation.
September 7, 2020
ThecEU will never reform.
They have a plan and they are moving towards a United States of Europe.
A closed protectionist society of falling living standards.
September 7, 2020
Get real – vote leave is a lobby group, their so called manifesto meant nothing
I only thing that meant anything was the ballot paper question
September 7, 2020
Daniel Hannan: âAbsolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market.â
September 7, 2020
Well we will still be selling goods and services into Europe after 31st December 2020.
September 7, 2020
Who cares what Hannon or Boris or May or Cameron âsaidâ? The question was clear, âin or outâ! We fought long and hard to get that question and you acknowledge the question was clear by chucking in a red Hannon.
September 8, 2020
Tabulazero, Always trotted out by Remain. But if you look at what he said in the rest of the interview it is clear that Hannan meant access by place, he did not mean membership. Both Leave and remain were explicit, repeatedly, that a vote to Leave meant leaving the single market.
September 7, 2020
Correct Lynn
September 7, 2020
No, won’t wash Lynn.
It was between the defined – Remain, and the undefined – Leave.
And there is no more a “clean” brexit than there is a “pretty” disembowelment, or a “tidy” plane crash anyway, as is being proved to us daily.
Try not to look as silly as you make yourself appear so often here.
September 7, 2020
Rubbish- neither remain nor leave were fully defined, but one meant we kept our own rules made by our democratically elected reps and the other didn’t
September 7, 2020
Too late Martin.
These are arguments from back in 2016
September 8, 2020
Martin, No one, including the Remain campaign, questioned what Leave meant before the vote. Only after the vote. Both campaigns clearly said that Leave meant leaving the SM, CAP, CFP, CCP (ie: having our own trade policy), etc.
September 7, 2020
Newmania, Why do you lie about a quote? Can’t make the Remain point unless you do? Liam Fox said the negotiation “should” the easiest, not that it would be. And it was “should be” because the UK and the EU were starting off perfectly aligned already. But the EU wants to have its cake and eat it – to make us a “colony” obeying their rules and not treated as a sovereign equal.
September 7, 2020
Sorry allow me to re interpret b y “should be ….” you meant likely to be a disaster for anyone whose job is dependent on frictionless tariff free trade with our largest suppler and market by far
Might I remind you that your selfish lies extended well beyond the fairy tale that we would get by to the statement that we would be significantly richer , by means of spending the EU payments several times a day ( since dropped ).
90-% of Brexit voters actually thought they would be better off a fiction for which absolutely no authoritative source has anything but contempt
September 8, 2020
Newmania, Our largest supplier and market by far is our own home market, then the WTO rest of the world. The EU is only a poor third. I think we will be better off out – since when has a colony been rich? Certainly all the British Empire’s ex-colonies thought they would be better off out.
September 7, 2020
Nick C
We still ahve the problm with you and your colonies and we also have a problem with this sovereignty you keep talking about, which is more in your mind than in reality in an interdpendent global world , with lots of regional trade groups, with teh single market being the largest free market deal in the world.
September 7, 2020
Most nations are independent.
Their own national parliaments make their own laws.
No outside agency makes their laws.
If they wish freely to be part of a mutually beneficial relationship with another nation well that is their decision.
But that doesn’t weaken their sovereignty.
The Single Market isnt free.
The UK pays ÂŁ12 billion a year in fees and ends with a ÂŁ90 billion a year trade deficit.
Not a good deal in my opinion.
September 8, 2020
Edward 2
It is not for you to decide what free UK citizens spend their money on and if they wish to buy European cars as oppose to other cars, we end up with a trade deficit as an example.
So stop telling consumers what they wish to spend their money on
September 8, 2020
I never have.
How did you get that idea?
I am all for free trade and the freedom for individuals to buy what they want from whosoever they want.
Buy the products and services you (plural) prefer.
From wherever you wish.
September 8, 2020
Bill B, That’s your problem then, not mine. If you’re in difficulty consult a dictionary. Sovereignty means a country can react as it sees fit. In the EU we couldn’t. It’s not that difficult to understand, Bill.
September 7, 2020
I’m not sure. If however the Remain campaign had been run along the following lines:-
“The governments you habitually elect are not fit to govern, and the civil service no longer has anyone who can think for themselves, so we need to be run by Brussels.”
Cameron and co should have followed this line if they had wanted Remain to win. They chose Project Fear, when they should have opted for Project Incompetence.
September 7, 2020
But a deal is yet to be concluded.
Nothing has yet been “delivered”
September 7, 2020
It could have been the easiest negotiation ever.
Barnier: ‘They should have the Canada deal’.
May: ‘Where do I sign?’
But instead Theresa May screwed it up with her ‘bespoke deal’ and as David Frost recently alluded the waters were muddied.
September 7, 2020
May wanted to Remain in all but name.
September 7, 2020
The UK electorate voted “Leave”.
It did not vote “Brexit”.
The term “Brexit” was designed to obfuscate, which it successfully achieved.
September 7, 2020
âNo deal is better than a bad deal.â How many billions has Mayâs failure to stick to this and her pathetic dithering cost the UK? A shame we cannot bill her for it or at least stop her Iâll deserved gold plated pension.
She has not even had the decency to resign as an MP and stand as the LibDim dope she is and always was. Her even more moronic net zero Carbon Agenda will cost us far more still unless it is dropped now.
September 7, 2020
Ill deserved – stupid tablet!
September 7, 2020
No, it is not that simple, one week blame the French, one week the Germans, one week the Commission. You have to make sure of varying the pleasures.
September 7, 2020
Oops, that was for Table Rase.
September 7, 2020
At the end of the day, the EU is unwilling to throw out of the window the legal order it took 50 years to build and on which depends so much trade, jobs, peace and security on the continent simply to placate the whims of the middle-aged Brexiters and their nostalgia of imperial grandeur.
That is the inescapable truth of the negotiations.
Now, we could all save some precious time by skipping directly to the end when the Brexiters such as John Redwood blame it all on the French. Can we get there now ?
September 7, 2020
Yes that would be great
We have wasted nearly 5 years and have paid the EU many extra billions in fees, which could have been spent instead on health, education and welfare.
September 7, 2020
They will rather be spent on replicating all the administrative & regulatory bodies the UK left behind.
Custom systems do not come cheap.
September 7, 2020
ÂŁ12 billion a year for free trade and a ÂŁ90 billion a year trade deficit.
What a deal.
September 7, 2020
Edward 2
that assumes that everything else would be equal by not being members and that I would like to see you prove?
September 7, 2020
Many nations trade with the UK and EU without paying ÂŁ12 billion a year in fees.
Notice any shortages of Japanese goods in Europe over the last few decades?
Or South Korean
Ot American
Or Chinese
Or many other nations.
September 8, 2020
Edward 2
this is ont thepoit they ahve been paying thorugh tariffs which we have not trading with the EU
September 8, 2020
Tariffs are low.
The average is a single figure.
The currencies between world nations move by a greater amount even within a year.
The UK is offering the EU a free trade arrangement.
Why would a democratic set of nations think that was a poor offering?
September 7, 2020
Look here, not there. The art of the con.
As we move into the final Act of the current farce in play for us plebs, we see the stage being set for the last minute ‘miracle’ deal pulled out of the hat by ‘magic’ Johnson. Just like the trap-laden, atrocious ‘turd’ (but with glitter) of a WA/PD that he signed. Except this time it won’t wash. This is all about how few bones/scraps they can throw the people to keep them quiet and not notice the behind the door dealing. An illusion of independence, just as we have the illusion of democracy.
There is always one thing missing from the statements about our independence. Our taking back control. There is absolute silence from MPs regarding it. Think that we don’t notice? It won’t wash this time.
Defence & Security. May signed us up to these (bar one, but the rest is effective EU control) AFTER we voted to leave. She failed twice to inform the House about its implications (see Facts4EU articles).
We currently have troops under EU Command & Control.
Non-inquisitive MPs are being misled by Civil Serpents intent on giving the EU control via the back door. We have seen the attempts to create a ‘business push’ to stay.
As with all takeovers, it starts with ‘procurement’. This gives the ‘in’ not only on product specification, but ‘influencing’ working practices, H&S, environment and many other work related ‘regulations’. These of course, will need to be widened to encompass anyone who ‘may’ become involved in the ‘business’. The usual thin end of the wedge.
The silence regarding the atrocious WA/PD, which needs to be ripped up as a VERY bad deal.
The silence regarding the (obvious to a blind man) EU’s continued bad faith dealing.
The silence over our future Defence & Security.
The silence about the failure to walk away as promised for 30th June.
All very telling.
There is a reason why the EU is so adamant that everything must be in legal text (binding) BY 31st December. I wonder why that is? Could it be that it isn’t in our favour at all?
Where are our Brexit MPs in the House?
September 7, 2020
Yes! Yes! 1000x YES!
September 7, 2020
Sickening betrayal, well described.
September 7, 2020
We’ve talked about this so many times it now goes beyond anger and frustration – towards a dull ache in the stomach.
Why does anyone think we can trust the EU in any fashion, or work closely with them? Collectively they are like PIRANHA, taking all they can, and leaving but a corpse behind — Certainly that’s how it has always seemed.
It is now good that we appear to be taking our own line as regards the EU — Let this be an example, that we can think for ourselves – that we do not have to follow any trend like lemmings do…. For this to improve we need to work on how we evaluate situations….. Especially global decisions, UN treaties, and Viruses
September 7, 2020
We want full restoration of our sovereignty.
We would like a free trade agreement but it is not a necessity.
Irish and mainland European commercial vehicles cross our country and our commercial vehicles cross their countries, so measures to ease their passage would be sensible for all parties. But, if such measures cannot or will not be put in place, we will have to cope with whatever border checks are imposed on us and we should apply the same in return.
September 7, 2020
We voted to leave- we did not vote for another trade deal with them- then what’s so hard to understand? so looks like this week will tell a lot- if Boris has the ball’s to walk the walk?
It seems the EU side has already decided that if talks cannot be concluded this side of October then there will be plenty of time next year or the year after so maybe that’s what’s needed now-
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
I look forward to our all becoming free together, GB and NI. The EU notion that NI could be taken as the price for Brexit must be dispensed with as early as possible.
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
Dear Sir John,
I think it’s incumbent that old students (or whatever formal term is) of Oxford and Cambridge form a society now to preserve the old parts of these cities whilst coming up with exciting new plans to develop the new parts.
These great cities must expand. They don’t have to be ruined at all. The opposite. But they must have new buildings inspired by the old, as well as modern architecture (in the new parts not the old parts) that are in keeping with classical-style, charming architecture.
Trinity College Dublin isn’t ruined by the fact that it also has many beautiful Georgian buildings built for the aristocracy, gentry and merchants. As well as many of Dublin’s beautiful bridges and other architectural structures. Plus, the Guinness Factory adds interest to the City.
All these extra things can add interest and vibrancy to an old city. They don’t have to take away from. Now is a great opportunity to turn Cambridge and Oxford into the UK’s Second and Third Cities. Wonderful destinations for people in business to reach. Wonderful destinations for companies to set up offices and for people to come and work in them.
But it requires careful and inspired planning. Let’s have a central square like in Prague (but not so big).
There are lots of really smart and well-off people who went to Oxford and Cambridge. But it needs people planning and coordinating for all this now.
September 7, 2020
Government helping to develop Cambridge and Oxford as the UK’s Second and Third Cities would be much cheaper and much more economically beneficial to the country than HS2 (and much more interesting).
(And by developing, I don’t mean improvement in travel and general housing, but helping to create beautiful buildings (not necessarily housing) in the new parts of the city – buildings that would add to the cultural landscape of the city, helping to give it a ‘cool vibe’. There is a lot of evidence to show how the atmosphere of a place is crucial to attracting business to a place.
If a new Birmingham is build on the outskirts of Oxford, then the development plan has failed.
September 7, 2020
‘ I donât mean improvement in travel and general housing’ – well I mean that as well – but far more than just this.
September 7, 2020
I would VERY HAPPILY work on a very rough draft plan about how the government can prepare for Cambridge and Oxford to be the Second and Third Cities of England. Why. And how to do it.
For Queen and Country
September 7, 2020
Oh for goodness sake!
Govt only want their filthy âtriangleâ to inflict more and more and more houses in beautiful countryside.
ÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁssss
Not for us!
September 7, 2020
Ed M,
Sooo, you suggest that Oxford and Cambridge with a population of about a third of a million between them (i.e. about annual net immigration), get some nice new, cultural buildings whilst the rest of England continues with a pop’n around 60 million, swathes of homeless (just look at the rough sleepers along canal banks and in doorways), multiple beggars on many major road junctions etc. If the people of Oxford and Cambridge can create so much economically lets relocate them to Thirsk (say) to get another area moving and perhaps house all next year’s immigrants could be located in Cambridge and Oxford to benefit from the buildings … and to optimise this plan could I bagsy the wine cellar at St John’s
September 8, 2020
@Cat
‘ If the people of Oxford and Cambridge can create so much economically lets relocate them to Thirsk (say)’
– The economic evidence is that this doesn’t work!
The evidence is that a major reason why well-educated middle class people encourage or restrict people to a particular location is ‘vibe’ it has. And so a key reason why important, high-skilled companies will choose a location with a good ‘vibe.’
One of the big attractions of London as a destination for companies to relocate to and invest in is that their employers are happy settle down their families there (and a big reason why some / many don’t want to relocate to Frankfurt is that they find it a boring place to live and bring up their children).
You’re looking at this completely from the POV of a financial spreadsheet. Instead of taking in the human aspect of this as well.
September 8, 2020
Frankfurt might be a really great place. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. It’s the perception it has for many people (some / many might be willing to live there for a couple of years for job promotion but not live there for 20 or 30 years).
But many would be very happy to relocate to Berlin say. It has the kind of vibe that many well-educated middle class people like and would like to bring up their children in. And why Berlin is now thriving as an economic destination for people in business in general including companies relocating there. There are other reasons too why it’s thriving but the ‘cool vibe’ factor is key. The ‘cool vibe’ factor that you certainly get in London. But not in ‘Thirsk’ or other places, at least not nearly so much.
September 8, 2020
@Caterpillar
Also, why is it so odd to build beautiful new buildings? Both for reasons of patriotism but also economics – the evidence is there to show that well-educated, wealthy middle class people in business are attracted to beautiful places to live, settle down and bring up their children. And companies follow their employees. Beautiful buildings help to create an interesting buzz that is attractive to people to live in.
Look at all the great and beautiful buildings built in Europe / UK during The Middle Ages / The Renaissance / Sir Christopher Wren / Queen Anne houses etc.
I’ll stop there. All the best whatever you think.
September 7, 2020
Are you saying that you have conceded Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol to the âimmigrantsâ and that they are now âforeign territoryâ? Do you think the U.K. should be partitioned as Macron thinks France will be partitioned?
September 9, 2020
My main focus is that they’re just not nearly as attractive places in terms of architecture / tress / parks (but in particular architecture) – compared to places such as London or Cambridge or Oxford or Bath. I think rich middle class people who bring companies to places are more focused on this and high culture and cool ‘vibe’ than than immigrants (immigrants is more of a concern for working class people who live in the same areas as immigrants).
If rich, well-educated people from were thinking of moving, because of work, to a city – London would easily be of first choice for many. And some / many would consider Cambridge or Oxford or Bath. And that would include many of these people from the north. But few of these types of people would consider moving to Birmingham or Manchester or Bristol. That’s the reality.
Which is an important reason why we need to develop Cambridge and Oxford as Second and Third Cities of UK – not forgetting how Cambridge is all set up to be the capital of UK’s Silicon Valley.
September 9, 2020
I have no idea how to develop the north. All I know is that we should focus on the much easier and better option, for now, of developing Cambridge and Oxford as UK’s Second and Third City – I accept countryside will be lost. I am sad about that to a degree. But city development beautifully done can make up for it (why can’t we have beautiful cities like in the Middle Ages / Renaissance / and later – a fraction could of cost of HS2 could go into building some beautiful public squares, streets, arches, buildings in general in developments in places such as Cambridge and Oxford.
September 9, 2020
The problem now is that planning is so short-term and utilitarian – compared to the great city planners of The Middle Ages, The Renaissance and later. And we don’t have to be slaves to the era we live in. We can do anything we want, within reason, as long as we have the imagination and courage and moral discipline and values to carry out.
September 7, 2020
Careful what you wish for.
An friend has bought a ÂŁ400k house on a new estate and they didn’t tell him that 40% of that estate was to be given to problem families from cities.
He’s taken it up with his MP and intends to sue the developers.
September 7, 2020
Iâm pleased you like Dublin. Itâs the Great Georgian city, built by the English of course (including Trinity College from where Ireland was basically Governed). If you take the tour of the Castle, they will say âyou could see right across the whole city (Mud huts) from the castle which was built on a hill – itâs not now of courseâ đ
September 9, 2020
Yes, Dublin is a great city – the best in these islands after London.
And, yes, the English (over straight from England or of English ancestry) were largely responsible for it.
The more humble Irish are aware of this and thankful for.
But I want the UK two have a great Second and Third City like Dublin was the UK’s Second City in the past – and in particular, I’d like to see Cambridge and Oxford developed into this (but only if these places are developed with taste / style / classical charm / modern charm like Gherkin etc / proper planning).
September 7, 2020
It looks to me as if M. Barnier is trying to milk maximum drama from a straightforward statement from Boris of the position as it stands.
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
My instincts are increasing that a lousy deal will be agreed with the usual Johnson bluster.
September 7, 2020
It’s quite simple – the EU’s primary aim is to enhance its own power (“ever closer union”, etc). Yet the EU has nothing to add of its own, because it started off with nothing. So, inevitably, in a sort of ghastly zero-sum power game, the EU can only steal power from its constituent sub-states. Thereby making them vassals. Consequently “no deal” (ie no comprehensive trade deal) is the only method of escape for the UK. And always was.
September 7, 2020
NickC
Actually it is not a zero sum game, if teh 27 can get more out of doing trade deals for the Eu with the rest of the World, which makes none of them a vasal state
September 7, 2020
“Mrs May had the right approach and the right slogan when she first embarked on negotiations over the UKâs exit from the EU.”
I’d suggest there is very little evidence at all that she ever had the right approach.
I think on the whole we should just walk away on WTO terms, restrict access to fishing, and then next year or the year after resume FTA negotiations with the EU.
September 7, 2020
Bugger the FTA negotiations for ever! Letâs take their ÂŁ13 billion pa profit for access to our market.
September 7, 2020
I think the title to your article encapsulates perfectly how M. Barnier and his team are thinking about the proposition that Mr Frost has made to them.
September 7, 2020
Exactly.
And why are masked ( so it is recent) British Paratroopers acting under EUFOR command?
The masks bore the EU badge!
Thatcher vetoed UK acting under EU command. Has that veto gone?
To act under EU command makes us no longer a nation.
So how can we be leaving??
September 7, 2020
Sorry.
That was an answer to Dominic.
September 7, 2020
we didn’t order any UK badges. Hopefully we do have parachutes?
September 7, 2020
Oh myâŠwasnât that the mantra 5 years ago
Wasnât true then; isnât true now
This government will sell its soul to secure an EU deal
We just donât believe you
September 7, 2020
We DEFINITELY do not!
And to think that the tories KNOW they only have their majority because of a slight of hand/tongue.
Maybe that was the purpose of May and Corbyn?
The one to p*ss around re Brexit and the other to be unelectable etc etc. So Boris the Gove-sidelined âheroâ would âsave usâ etc etc??
Do they plan these things over eons?
September 7, 2020
No learning is better than bad learning.
September 7, 2020
There is no pressing need for any deal before the end of the Transition.
We leave, then negotiate if it is then in our interest.
Betrayal is in the air. We want to be free.
September 7, 2020
+1
September 7, 2020
Yes the only way to be free is to leave now and then in a few years time to restart talks if we want and when we’re ready
September 7, 2020
After the May years this feels almost “too good to be true”. We got used to seeing her turn a potentially winning hand into a losing one. In fact, we came to see that this was her intention all along, in cahoots with her awful Chancellor, Hammond (otherwise, why try to foist Chequers onto an unsuspecting Cabinet, including an unsuspecting Brexit minister?).
I’m still saying that I’ll believe it when I see it, but the signs so far are good – very good in fact. I understand that we have “under-asked” on financial services, so perhaps WTO is the best outcome for now, with real negotiations after we are fully out in 2021.
If the government do get us out as expected, I hope they will not throw it all away with silly tax rises. If the reports last night are true, they are planning tax rises to end before the next election that would hit pensioners, pension savers and many other core voters (and new Red Wall voters) hard. That is not Conservative (or even conservative) and I hope you will join the likes of |David Davis in resisting the government, voting against the Finance Bill if necessary (it only takes 40 voting the other way to overturn a majority of 80).
September 7, 2020
Agree entirely with this post.
We need to compete in the world and not be part of a protection racket.
September 7, 2020
Lifted from todays Daily Telegraph(Telegraph View), simply stated – but who is listening?
The EU has a choice, therefore. It can carry on insisting that the UK should remain as a satellite state, in which case there will be no deal, or acknowledge that it is once again an independent nation and deal with it accordingly, as it has for Canada or Australia. On vexed issues like fishing and state intervention the EU needs to recognise it is no longer dealing with a member state. The reluctance of the Brussels negotiators to come to terms with this reality is the biggest stumbling block to an agreement that is in our mutual interests to conclude.
September 7, 2020
Even if the UK leaves with a trade agreement or on WTO rules, the legislation already passed continues EU regulations for agriculture, energy and industry. Standards will not change. We are accepting that biofuels will be added to our petrol, causing reduced fuel economy and more tax. Farmers have lobbied to continue more expensive chicken production and we will not be able to import from the US or use chlorine washing to reduce contamination or have the choice of US or Argentinian beef. The trade deal with the US looks difficult as a result.
September 7, 2020
Seems a lot of confusion here.
Agriculture is largely ruld by CAP , which I would summarise as a protection scheme and subsidy for largely inefficient French and German farmers.
Energy is ruled by crazy green EU policy making it very expensive to the end user.
The EU do not have industrial standards. These are ISO 9000or QS9000 and operate on a worldwide basis. The EU just comply.
A trade deal with the USA or for that matter anyone else is just that, a trade deal. No compulsion to buy anything, as always people will buy what they want.
Relax we are approaching interesting times in our history.
September 7, 2020
One thing about Brexit that most politicians don’t seem to realise yet: it made the electorate start to understand many of the technicalities of UK politics. The days of spin pulling the wool over people’s eyes are in the past.
People are very angry, so any concessions from here will see the Conservative Party do what the Liberals did in the early 20th century – one decision (to go into coalition with the Labour party) can lead to perpetual electoral oblivion.
September 7, 2020
I would predict, a lot and I mean a lot of very good MP’s will lose their job should we not get the ‘Clean Break’ we voted for.
Shooting ourselves in the foot – so be it. The only way to get them to take notice of who this country belongs for us and future generations. The best quiet revolution yet!
September 7, 2020
No CFP and no CAP; no sacrificial lambs at all.
September 7, 2020
The problem with âno deal is better than a bad dealâ is that it is simply not true.
It was not true in 2016. It is not true in 2020. It was not true at any point in between.
The reality is that any deal is better than a no deal.
The problem with Brexit is not the EU or Ireland or Remoaners or the BBC.
The problem with Brexit has always been Brexit. It is a mass of contradictions.
We are told Brexit is about increasing trade – but then it makes trade harder.
We are told it is about cutting red tape – but then it requires masses of additional bureaucracy.
We are told it is about freedom – but then it removes masses of freedoms.
It is a complete and utter mess. But – and hereâs the thing – it is a Tory mess. And whether it takes 3 years or 30 you will own the blame.
September 7, 2020
You are in a minority.
Get Brexit done was the election slogan of the Conservatives.
They got a huge 80 seat majority.
If the nation wanted to remain in the EU the Lib Dems and Greens should have done really well.
But they had a dreadful campaign.
And Labour slumped to their worst election result since 1935.
September 7, 2020
To say that any deal is better than no deal is a stupid thing to say. Would a deal where we pay 12 thousand, million pounds a year to be a member of a trading bloc where we import twice as much as we export be a good deal. You do make some idiots comments.
September 7, 2020
I am surprised the Labour Party didnât get 100% behind Brexit from the gecko â theyâd be in power now and probably for 10 years
September 7, 2020
I voted to join the “Common Market” and now have to live with that Andy – so I think I can live my decision to leave what that “Market” actually became – which was not what we were told it would be.
September 7, 2020
Well, we have the usual anti Tory rabble, pro EU trolls posting here but the majority seem to hold true Tory values, something many of your fellow MP’s seem to have forgotten. All of your posts show the Tory voters are crying out for long lost values. If only someone would listen.
September 7, 2020
John Redwood sees nothing wrong with Boris Johnson hoping to leverage a binding trade deal out of the EU by… reneging on the latest binding deal he himself signed with the EU less than 12 months ago.
It’s amateur hour at the Cabinet.
September 7, 2020
NOTHING IS AGREED UNTIL EVERYTHING IS AGREED.
Remember that?
September 7, 2020
In English, nothing means nothing.
September 7, 2020
If you want a successful outcome to negotiations you have to play all your cards.
Have you ever been involved in negotiations?
September 7, 2020
Tabulazero:
The WA is a treaty, nothing more nor less. Withdrawing from treaties happens.
Article 50 clearly states that any WA must be based on the future arrangements. The EU insisted it was done the other way round, which can only be a completed process if the future relationship is agreed (i.e. an FTA), so if there is not FTA then the WA is null and void.
September 7, 2020
I would be confident that the spin lines are being prepared for the sellout to come.
Mrs May prepared the way with the appalling W/A and Mr Johnson ratified it.
Oven ready betrayal.
September 7, 2020
BOF
Have to admit there is a chance you could be right, but we will have to wait and see.
The conservatives will be electorally slaughtered and out of power for the rest of time if there is any whiff of betrayal, and they know it.
September 7, 2020
An off piste solution to the menace to normal working life created by Extinction Rebellion and other demonstrators. Ban demos in other than designated places that can be pre booked with the police and those controlling said places. A suitably sized area of Hyde Park, fenced and paid for entry by swipe card. Rebates once the cost of litter removal has been covered. Just like a pop concert minus the music. The BBC and other broadcasters could record what they wish for national transmission. The main point is that the normal business life of our capital or any other city does not suffer constant interuption. My offer to Priti Patel.
September 7, 2020
You say UK is not seeking any special privileges from the EU only trade agreements like they have with Canada and Japan but you miss the point- Just because EU has trade agreements with these countries does not mean they will think it suitable to give us the same. The EU as a sovereign bloc is free to set up such trade agreements with outsiders that it wants. So let’s forget about Canada and Japan for the moment- they see Canada and Japan as converging to their rules but we are diverging away there is a big difference and instead maybe think about India or Ukraine’s relationship with them say with WTO Rules and then think again- but more like WTO Rules minus JIT. 1950’s 1960′ style.
September 7, 2020
Hey lets stop there. In exactly which ways are Canada and Japan converging to EU rules. I think it very important that you explain this convergence line by line.
Normality in trade is that you supply the customer in terms of specification, price, quality, and timing with what he/she has decided to buy from you. It would be quite extraordinary if he decided that to do so your tax system must comply with some norm he considered acceptable, or anything else outside the jurisdiction of a customer. What the EU appears to be asking of the UK is pure politics and nothing to do with trade.
If the EU persist and we decline, then I am quite happy with WTO rules. After all 60% of our trade is conducted that way and the balance is in credit. Trade with the EU has been in defecit from day one and dutywise they would be the loser.
September 7, 2020
Letâs be honest, weâre getting a world beating deal whatever happens.
And youâll vote Tory whatever happens.
September 7, 2020
In a democracy the laws, rules and regulations are made in parliament by representatives of the people.
An observation would be that the WA was not made by this UK Government, this one has been democratically elected with a different point of view to the previous incumbents.
That will always happen in a democracy. It is the people that get to choose, whether to keep, modify and repeal decisions previously made. That is the whole point of elections, they are in fact mini referendums. Its the natural way of undoing deliberate damage, change of circumstance by others.
The EU has reneged and reneged again and again in these talks. The EU rules state that should a state leave the union a withdrawal agreement and future trading will be agreed on in tandem.
September 7, 2020
The WA is illegal. Itâs not part of the âLeave the EUâ process. Whether it was approved/ratified etc is irrelevant, it was not âpart of the EU lawsâ which we know are sacrosanct!
September 7, 2020
The good thing to come out of this is that the Europeans know that the Brits cannot be trusted.
September 7, 2020
hilarious.
September 7, 2020
Spoken like a true leftie remainer.
September 7, 2020
Perfideus Albion is our histoical moniker. However we are the only european country to come away from our empire leaving both sides relatively unscathed. Many of them retain our institutions because they see value in them.
Perceptive european nations know us for what we did to return them from their errant ways since Napoleon , if not at the political level then at the personal level when libersted from tyranny.
As an electorate we have expressed ourselves very clearly. Though it has taken our governing class some time to accept it, I think they have now got the message and realise that any wavering will cost them dearly. The EU also understand but do not like it. Our democracy puts it outside their control. They will provaricate even knowing they have lost. It is a sign of their frustration.
September 8, 2020
Very well said agricola
September 7, 2020
Nobody will take any notice of borders in the Irish Sea or in Ireland… it is and will be a de facto free trade and movement area. Whatever the politicians say, business will do what makes sense.
September 7, 2020
They never did before, different prices always, we got our turkeys from Ulster and paid less tax too.
September 7, 2020
PS Last time I looked, The RoI had 17 different VAT rates. So on the island they have maintained a huge difference in taxation.
September 7, 2020
Dear Sir JR
there is a lot of posturing on boh sides for the moment.
I am hopeful that good sense will prevail on both sides and a deal will finally be made as is often the case with teh EU.
September 7, 2020
I agree.
These next few months towards December 31st will be full of posturing, claim and counter claim.
Like you I think good sense will prevail right at the end.
September 7, 2020
If there was any good sense involved we would not be here in the first place – no doubt there will be posting n but the fact remains that the EU has much much less to lose than the UK .
How many people would have voted for this fiasco do you think , why do you think they need the ability to throw State aid around .Its to allow them to max out the UK card lying to us with our money delaying the job losses they caused.
September 7, 2020
Well the nation voted to leave in 2016 so here we are.
I realise you love the EU.
Possibly because you think it will get you your socialist society.
But the EU are only pretending.
Really they are a rich globalist bosses club.
September 7, 2020
like Lufthansa then
September 7, 2020
Sir JR
“EU has not negotiated in good faith”
Is it good faith to present internal market bill, which erodes and override the N. Ireland protocol?
I would state that is we can accuse the EU of negotiting in bad faith, we ahve just started doing it ourselves with the internal market bill
Reply See tomorrow’s blog which will answer this
September 7, 2020
Reply to reply: I hope it will address why the UK still think it is entitled to get its wishes and fantasies fulfilled by its neighbouring countries. That is the bit that I still do not get 4 years on.
September 7, 2020
Well why shouldn’t the UK aim for a good outcome?
September 7, 2020
You never will âgetâ it. We subsidise the EU, not the other way around!
September 7, 2020
That is Germany actually.
September 8, 2020
Germany pay a lot, it is true.
But the UK has been a net payer into the EU budget in every year bar one since we joined.
So Lynn is correct we, the UK, subsidises the EU.
September 7, 2020
@bill brown
Sir, I think you might be better informed to consider that countries ours liberated from tyranny have been holding the UK to ransom. That is certainly not good faith.
September 7, 2020
JR – after reading all this, and day after day, are you sleeping well, undisturbed?
September 7, 2020
If ever there was a time to stop printing work visas for skills in oversupply this is it. Why oh why oh why are we still printing masses of work visas?
September 7, 2020
There are an awful lot of Brexit pessimists posting comments. I think they all have one thing in common. They have no backbone and wish to remain EU slaves and don’t mind our loss of sovereignty. Shame on you all.
September 7, 2020
John Partington
stop talking about a soverignty which was lost in and interdependent world decades ago. It is all rather naive, so there is no shame in raising the issues
September 7, 2020
Yes the EU is trying to dispatch the nation state into history.
The ordinary people in the UK still want to live in a nation state.
In control of their borders laws and money.
Bit like the majority of other nations currently on Earth.
September 7, 2020
The government is correct to legislate to decide unilaterally whether goods entering NI from GB are âat riskâ of entering the EU market. The Withdrawal Agreement as it stands is a recipe for the EU and Dublin playing silly buggers disrupting GB-NI trade at no cost to themselves simply because they can and it advances a Republican agenda. Any FTA agreed with the EU in the next month must replace the current text in the Irish âbackstopâ that assumes the default is that all goods flowing from GB to NI are at risk unless the Joint Committee (with its EU veto) decides otherwise.
September 7, 2020
Since the ‘bad features’ of the WA and PD were already bad in December, bad in January (when you voted on the WA with its NI protocol) and equally bad in every subsequent month up to now, nine months later, and since we repeatedly told you just how bad they were, why did you a) vote for such a treaty in the first place and then b) wait so long before discovering the ramifications of the NI and ‘level playing field’ clauses? Clearly you yourself saw the drawbacks, as you have been campaigning in recent weeks to set the WA aside.
So the question remains – terrible treaty, inadequately altered, obvious basic flaws – why on earth did you pass it in parliament back in January? Without an explanation it looks like sheer incompetence by Tory party strategists, and/or desperation by the whips wanting to get it through before MPs realized they’d been had..
September 7, 2020
By now we ought to take the EU at its word on these negotiations. When the EU says it will only agree a trade deal if it retains some control over us, and our Norway type offer for fishing is unacceptable, then we should believe them.
As we reject their offer, they will have with no fishing agreement, which apparently is so important to them, but clearly not as important as ruling over us. The kindest thing we can do is disabuse the EU of such ideas by terminating negotiations now.
We must also withdraw totally from the disadvantageous WA on 31st Dec.
We must not retain any obligation to underwrite the Euro.
With modern technology we can keep the Irish border open on our side. It is up to them what they do on their side.
They have excluded us from the Galileo project and are wanting to exclude us from the next generation Nuclear fusion project. They do not treat us as friends.
September 7, 2020
Theyâll make a hash of a deal like they are with covid-19
Its absurd that theyâre still talking about quarantine and local lockdown when yesterday there was only 2 deaths and today only a further 3 deaths
This insanity has to stop
September 7, 2020
Indeed. All sense of proportion has been lost.
Zero Covid is going to equal Zero Life.
September 7, 2020
But why did Mrs May feel the need for a U turn.What it who made her change her stance?
September 7, 2020
All this is due to the fact that the French think they have God given right to UK sovereign fishing grounds. Unless they get it, there will be no ‘deal’. They themselves made it quite clear. That is how the most ungrateful nation on earth behaves.
Boris must stand his ground –
No EU fishing in our sea areas.
We shall return migrants back to France, on the basis that once in French waters France has a responsibility to give them asylum.
We do not recognise the ECJ.
We shall define NI border as we see fit.
We are not part of any EU defence arrangement, particularly involving France – never again.
September 7, 2020
You’ve just listed every concession Boris will make
September 7, 2020
Could be you’ll get your wish tomorrow morning when Barnier asks D Frost directly if the UK intends sticking with the withdrawal agreement in its entirity- if an affirmative answer is not forthcoming then I think we are at the end of the road.
September 7, 2020
The behaviour of Barnier and EU has demonstrated to all countries esp in Europe why they must leave Brussels too – not for for purpose! Just want to control ratchet-like Boa constrictor, squeeze everything out of us until we give in.
After 5 years, nay 50 years “Enough is enough!”
We must never give in to bullies.
September 8, 2020
Good morning one and all
Well so many of us now all on the same page,
So many of us not believing this Government one bit.
Who would want to be Bo Jo , he will go down in History alright, as will this disgraceful Parliament.
The Leavers will win in the end , sad there is hardly any of them in this Parliament
September 8, 2020
Sir John, how do you get round article 4 of the WA? You will need a very robust legal case, not merely arguable but robust and based on solid legal precedent. I have reviewed the Vienna Convention and found nothing that would give UK a way round the WA. Brandon Lewis says there are precedents. What are they?