Tuesday 20 June 2017

Brexit - at last, perhaps





So we are off, the first round of negotiations has started. David Davis, a solid pair of hands if not spectacular, has laid out the terms -


Leaving the EU
Leaving the Single Market
Leaving the Customs Union


This has not made Barnier very happy, nor the Remain media who are now starting on their long campaign of 'UK failing at negotiations" which will be a very dull and uninspiring commentary for the next two years.


It will, even if untrue, do for the Tory party. Their reward for achieving Brexit will be ballot box defeat, a la Churchill and 1945.


This of course is dependent on May holding on as Prime Minister for some time, which again the media are trying their best to prevent. I can only hope she is strong enough to realise that now the election is kind of won, she can really settle in for a year or two before quitting - enough to give time to the Brexit team to have more of less completed the negotiations.


Oddly, the piece I see a lot of commentators missing is that there is this 'negotiation failure' mantra. Actually, with the terms above there is little to negotiate in reality - basically we agree a big settlement payment, Irish border issue and EU citizens rights - then onto a trade deal. The trade deal may end up in a transitional agreement, but as it will be for goods and not services, this is really not that hard to do.


An actual negotiation, which Labour and others are ignorantly promoting as part of their populist binge, of trying to stay in the Single Market but with restricted immigration - that would be tough to do! Sensibly, we are not even trying it.


As a final anecdote, I did meet a junior UK negotiator rather randomly the other day (civil servant, not politician), they were of the view if the media just dropped the pressure a bit everyone would be pleasantly surprised at how successful the chosen strategy will be.

21 comments:

L fairfax said...

I think the BBC etc want it to go wrong. Anything short of war could not be bad enough.

gmorris said...

How can you agree the Irish border without covering the customs border?

Anonymous said...

Declare unilateral free trade?

andrew said...

The media talk of failure is because in the referendum campaign Boris/Davis announced a strategy of 'have cake and eat it' and so anything less than that is failure.
Thus failure is guaranteed.

Never mind any media bias.

I do hope May stays on to 1 april 19, whether there is an election shortly thereafter depends on 'events'.

I am not sure the tories are doomed to defeat after a brexit 'victory' as there will be only losers (financially) from this process.
In the long term there may be winners as we will be free to look out and negotiate our own trade deals.

However, what makes you think we can negotiate a better deal with the US than the EU can?

The UK will be a (relative to being in the EU) a financially poorer country in future.
However (reading the Brexiters posts), money is not the point, the point of brexit is brexit, and on that basis the brexit process cannot fail.


Electro-Kevin said...

Frankly we're stuffed. It's the internal divisions, not the EU. The fifth column who will report/declare it all a failure even if it's a success.

Grenfell Towers is being used to destabilise this government.

The BBC would incite civil unrest rather than see Brexit succeed. The Remain/Left would render the country ungovernable rather than see us Leave the EU or get a real Tory government.

Latterly the maneouvering is for a second referendum based on a 53% poll in favour of it. Never mind the data from the original referendum and the recent election, indicating that 82% of voters voted for full Brexit parties and ditched the second-referendum LibDems.

- a referendum
- a court case
- a Parliamentary vote
- a general election

And STILL not good enough - they go scratching around for poll results and read into tragic incidents 'Tory cuts !' and ignore Labour's part in it all.

Electro-Kevin said...

"The UK will be a (relative to being in the EU) a financially poorer country in future."

I struggle to see how being in the EU has made my kids richer. Their prospects had gone off a cliff edge compared to mine long before Brexit.

That's why I voted Brexit !

Tell me. In what way is importing a lot of competition for jobs and for housing making us richer ?

And I am only richer in that I can borrow against the notional value of my house ... and bale my kids out !

dearieme said...

"basically we agree a big settlement payment": what have we done to deserve a big payment? I suppose it'll be reward for all our overpayments to Brussels for decades.

Anonymous said...

Grenfell Tower - a new angle.

£350k a flat - nudging £2k a month rent, in a prime London location. More expensive that many London commuters could afford - hence they commute.

Britain is not being ungenerous here.

How many hundreds of middle class road commuters have been killed on the road in and around the M25 since this and the last fatal tower block fire ?

Does anyone give a shit about them ?

Anonymous said...

I'd still take my chances in a tower block than have to commute by road.

CityUnslicker said...

Andrew - no the have cake an eat it strategy is the Remainer strategy - keep all the good bit. That is the task they have set the Tories to fail.

We saw yesterday the real people negotiating are not playing this game. Hence the remain media with their 1-0 to the EU headlines.

Trump will sign an awesome trade deal with the UK, the most awesomest trade deal ever. You are just a non-believer here. Genuinely though, the EU is shit at trade deal sbout great at protectionism.

The UK historically is the opposite, we will do OK over time.

Anonymous said...

@gmorris - the Swedes and Noggies have handled the EU/non-EU border issue, so we've a template there. Admittedly they've not got a semtex-owning Paddy Mafia to contend with, but it's a start.

@EK - I've no sympathy towards the government with Grenfell. It's been recorded they were warned multiple times over the years. They threw the risk dice by kicking the can, if it takes them down, well you pays your money, you takes your chances.

Not a chance they'll learn from this despite a lot of other kicked cans like energy out there. The council needs taking to task too.

Glad Brexit is moving ahead, and if we're out of the Customs Union and Single Market then happy days. It won't do much about immigration though, not before we've invested in our own youth rather than harvesting economic migrants, but if we can block the lower skilled then hopefully productivity should nose upwards.

Raedwald said...

I'll take one bet - that the externalities will change the position utterly. Greek default / Italian banks nosediving / Deutsche bank exposed as giant Ponzi scheme / Turkey causes migrant surge / German trade surplus boils over & bursts Euro / car leasing junk bonds crash market / interest rate rises / war, famine, earthquake fire and flood / Trump impeachment

How many of the above over the next two years?

L fairfax said...

@"Glad Brexit is moving ahead, and if we're out of the Customs Union and Single Market then happy days. It won't do much about immigration though, not before we've invested in our own youth rather than harvesting economic migrants, but if we can block the lower skilled then hopefully productivity should nose upwards."
We just need to say if you are not a UK citizen you don't get tax credits - the EU is welcome to say UK citizens can't get tax credits there either (ha ha).

Steven_L said...

And I am only richer in that I can borrow against the notional value of my house ... and bale my kids out !

You've hot the nail on the head EK. Since money and inflation are created when you remortgage your house to bankroll the kids deposit (and money is destroyed and deflation created if you simply pay off your mortgage) then yes, this makes us (well certainly the bankers and multiple property owners) 'richer'.

andrew said...

CU

Sorry, I like to fact check before posting (I know - bit weird) and didn't and got it wrong. It was an assistant of Mark Field's.

I do not have the brexit faith - or the remainer faith.

EK

All the media talk of failure would be offset by senior govt spokespeople saying how britain will be great again and free and have control and and... on all channels under a competent administration

That there aren't says either not competant (May still trying to control everything) or BJ has lost faith in the prize he won.

Your children are already poorer. All things being equal we import lots of things denominated in USD. The pound has fallen by ~16%. We are ~16% poorer when trying to buy a TV - or anything not made in the UK.

Readwald

Like the spanish inquisition, it will be the one you never expect.



L fairfax said...

@andrew
"Your children are already poorer. All things being equal we import lots of things denominated in USD. The pound has fallen by ~16%. We are ~16% poorer when trying to buy a TV - or anything not made in the UK."
Compared to housing that is nothing (although interest rates and stamp duty etc make it hard to be 100% sure how much poorer they are).

Anonymous said...

I see Soros is poking the fire, saying Brexit won't happen.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-politics-soros-idUKKBN19B1J0

ND - you're the energy man, how significant is this?

"Britain is set to lose its largest natural gas storage site, increasing the country's reliance on imported energy, after British Gas owner Centrica (CNA.L), said it would close its ageing Rough facility. Wholesale gas prices will become more volatile and more vulnerable to price spikes, analysts and traders said."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-gas-rough-idUKKBN19B0TZ

Anonymous said...

Cameron promised us the greenest government ever ... and Brexit is the ideal time to start.

..No second or third holidays a year as sterling is too weak. Saving on C02 emissions from FLIGHTS

..Not being able to afford first homes / larger homes. Smaller carbon footprints.

..No second, third or fourth car per household.

..Not being able to purchase new clothes so making do/recycling. Big jumpers to save on heating. Again lower carbon footprints.

..Food/Drink consumption down as we pay off the deficit. Savings on NHS as we'll all be healthier.

What's not to like about Brexit. Brought to you by the greener Conservatives.

Get's my vote

tolkein said...

I voted Remain. But I got over it. It was always a balanced decision. On balance I thought the financial benefits of being in the Single Market outweighed all the bureaucracy, lack of accountability, etc. But only on balance.
The week after the referendum I was reading Prospect and it was full of wailing and gnashing of teeth, etc. But, on the economics, they said that Uk income per head was going to be 1.4% (or so) less in 2030 than if wee'd stayed in. If that's the worst case, then it was a small price to pay to be in charge of our own destiny. And, who know, the Government could be frightened of the consequences of Brexit that it did really sensible things, like a better immigration system, more competition, better skills for young people and looked outwards beyond Europe.
So, I'm not anxious and the people in Government I meet (civil servants) don't seem as anxious as the press. Lots to do and all that, but it's going to be OK.

Anonymous said...

Tolkein,
Hope that Govt was going to have to do those sensible things was one of the compelling reasons why I voted leave.
It's one of the major reasons why many politicians, the BBC etc don't want UK to leave.
Politicians might actually have to do the hard yards of scrutinising legislation etc instaed of grandstanding.

Nick Drew said...

anon @4:57 - will do a post on Rough later in the week. It is big news (though not completely out of the blue) - it was flashing around the energy biz within nanoseconds of Centrica's market announcement