Tuesday 17 January 2017

May Speech discussion thread

Will be updated post-speech...






Image result for empty speech bubble


UPDATE: YAY, FULL BREXIT!

19 comments:

Blue Eyes said...

No deal is better than a bad deal.

I see Mrs May has travelled. A sledgehammer for Juncker et al. AND a not-so-subtle reference to Mr Cameron...!

Steven_L said...

Doh, she's gone and made the pound go up, the last thing we want. What's she playing at? Get stuck into her lads!

Bill Quango MP said...

Carney will bring it back down.

Anonymous said...

According to reports, Mrs May will reject any deal that leaves us "half-in, half-out".

According to her speech, we will leave the Single Market, but she hopes we will stay in a "new customs union". A lot depends on what is meant by "new", but that sounds like half-in, to me.

Bill Quango MP said...

I think its quite simple.
if they offer us the deal we would have been happy to accept during the 're negotiations' , when we were still IN, then we will sign it.
If they don't, we don't.

Only this time even the willfully blind EU must realise we are serious.

CityUnslicker said...

At least, through a good bit of stage management, she has got there. The reality is the EU will likely play hardball, so our starting position may as well be out and then see what we can get to our benefit. Tick.

Then she has said Parliament will get a say, giving remoaners hope yet. Tick.

Then when it all goes to shit, we get a no deal - what will Parliament do - there is no deal and we have already passed Article 50.

Victory, this smells like Victory - casualty estimates yet to come in of course....

Blue Eyes said...

Anon, I saw that in the BBC report as well and I did wonder. That said, I can imagine some complicated system that allows movement of stuff between the UK and EU without too onerous physical border controls at Folkestone etc.. Eg the tariffs are collected at rates depending on final destination, or somethig. This is an arrangement that Norway seems to operate relatively smoothly (albeit they find it hard to move their fish and vegetables into the EU). It's the sort of messy compromise that is inevitable and a relatively small price to pay for a potential free trade arrangement with both the EU and other countries!

While nothing substantive has changed today I am feeling more positive that a good outcome can be arranged.

Blue Eyes said...

(And of course a complicated customs union arrangement could be good for the Irish non-border situation.)

Anonymous said...

Pound at $1.20 was too low. $1.33 seems to be fair value to me.

E-K said...

I wish they would stop calling it the tariff free zone.

Membership of the single market comes at an incalculable cost.

dustybloke said...

Nothing will stop the EU Commissioners forcing the member states to commit sepuku in order to protect the Dream from Reality.

hovis said...

At first sight it looks a well pitched message of realism. Let us wait and see what the actuality is.

GMorris said...

I'm not worried about the ambition of TMays pitch, i don't think there'll be back tracking at the last moment. I do worry that people in Brussels might dupe the countries of Europe into giving a punitive deal, Junker and Tusk after all don't have their own country to ruin so nothing to lose so long as they preserve their empire.

Elby the Beserk said...

Anonymous E-K said...
I wish they would stop calling it the tariff free zone.

Membership of the single market comes at an incalculable cost
============================================================

Correct E-K, part of that being promoting poverty in Africa.

Steven_L said...

Well I don't see what's all that important to negotiate. The 'trade deal' industry has probably got out of hand. Is it really necessary for a nation on the other side of the world to enact laws protecting reserved geographic descriptions such as 'Parma ham' and 'Brie De Meaux' before removing the import duty on a bottle of wine? In fact, when it comes to wine, bunging another quid per bottle tax on might even be a good idea. That deficit is remarkably stubborn.

I'm not overly concerned about E111 cards and the like either. I don't go to Europe on holiday because it saves me on travel insurance, I go simply because it's a shorter flight. And if they get really arsey and make us jump through the same hoops as a Chinaman to get a holiday visa, I'll probably just start going to Thailand or the USA.

I can see that we need to negotiate the status of EU migrants in the UK and UK migrants in the EU. And future immigration arrangements like student visas, tourist visa, work visas etc. But I honestly can't see what else there is to negotiate. Most of the stuff folk are saying we need to negotiate is just special interest lobbying that any sensible PM can just ignore isn't it?

Can anyone explain what it is we need to negotiate apart from immigration?

Graeme said...

@S_L Richard Murphy thinks that the cost structure of the nation will change when we leave the EU. I am not sure what that means or whether it is good or bad but...you have to laugh at the inanity of it.

Timbo614 said...

@SL "Can anyone explain what it is we need to negotiate apart from immigration?"

To be honest that has been on my mind too. Brexit IS Brexit hard, soft, blah blah, all fabricated terms. Let's just go!

Dick the Prick said...

You can feel the economic butthurt. Christine LeGardde started babling about trees on our avenues - it was dire. After about a minute I realised she was a politician not an economist. This Davos bullshit is ersatz Bretton Woods and it looks a bit airport, Travel Lodge, bump into Lenny Henry crap evening. They're snowed in - at least when there's a conference in a city you can toddle off but in Davos? What's to see? I think Sky's Ed Conway may be having a nervous breakdown and i'm not the slightest bit concerned; it's about time.

Have you chaps got Trump parties going on? Draw the line at hot dogs. Some Del Boy was supposedly flogging 40 Euro hot dogs - it's a practical impossibility. Sausage in a bap can't be gourmet.

Trump's inauguration concert could be fantastic! The who?

I put it to youz that there is a little bit of art going on here and this is gonna be so comedically prescient that it becomes a dose of Americana we've not heard since Alastair Cooke popped his cloggs. This is Nixon and Clinton's souls fighting back. Never again will the Office of the President be traduced by such lowly procedure?

Be funny if Paul Simon turned up.

Electro-Kevin said...

I still don't think we're leaving the EU and nor does Peter Hitchens.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/