previous part can be found here

As the WA is done at technical level (Sabine Weyland and Ollie Robins sealed it), only the fight between tories and DUP is blocking it.
Yesterday, May managed to go to Brussels and not insult everyone for a change, things are just stalled and the special november summit is cancelled for now.

LOL at the title...

A nice summary of the past days negotiations:


Maybe time for the UK to start stepping up plans for 'No Deal'.

I'm not normally one who watches political speeches, but yesterday I took the time to watch Nicola Sturgeon's address to the RSA a few days ago. She makes an excellent case for remaining in the Single Market and the Customs Union. It seems to be the only logical course of action at this point, though of course it would be politically unpalatable to the hardcore Brexiteers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a94_vCo1fEw

Rich man says it's better for others to be poor

Sir Michael Caine on Brexit: Better to be poor outside the EU than rich in it.

Sir Michael Caine said he remains a Brexit supporter despite the impact it might have on the UK economy.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, the renowned actor said: "I don't listen to all these pundits. I'm a Brexiteer myself. Certainly.

“People say ‘Oh, you’ll be poor, you’ll be this, you’ll be that’. I say I’d rather be a poor master of my fate than having someone I don’t know making me rich by running it.”

The wealthy are always plenty eager to let everyone else know they won't care if they become a little less rich. Such patriotism!

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politic ... 65141.html

Pro-Brexit politicians who say UK voters must be held to their decision in the 2016 referendum say..

..that they themselves should not be held to their decisions to accept the backstop in December 2017 and March 2018 because they were "misled".

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/sta ... 8687784960

At least, I hope she will not dance again. So much cruelty for our eyes.....

Am I the only one who doesn't hate May's dancing?

Who?

So the UK is not hopelessly torn apart? Could have fooled me.

That the Brexiteers are now trying to argue that the UK government is somehow united is quite telling.

But it is not a visa. It is a waiver.

Is it for all travel to EU countries or just via air?

The UK should bring in something similar. A tenner for a year is fair and reasonable.

It is amusing though. Juncker said “We need to know who is crossing our borders. This way we will know who is travelling to Europe before they even get here“ and yet with the complete mess of the migrant crisis, you have absolutely no idea who has come in overland into the Schengen area and great EU area. Seems to be punishing those that enter lawfully whilst ignoring those that enter clandestinely. Absolute farce.

And it happens again! Outrage as people who voted to abolish free movement of people discover that abolishing free movement means movement of people will no longer be free.

You just cannot make this shit up!

https://i.imgur.com/Iwuth3h.jpg

zkojq wrote:

Maybe time for the UK to start stepping up plans for 'No Deal'.

It seems like the UK is quietly starting to prepare for no deal. https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-plan ... exit-deal/

Theresa May saying right now in Brussels that she thinks the back stop is only needed for "a few months" whilst the future economic relationship is negotiated and implemented.

She still apparently does not understand that:

a) the outcomes of that negotiation would effectively have to match those of the backstop to make no border necessary, so if the backstop is unpaletable to cabinet the future trading relationship will also be, and
b) the EU view on the backstop is that is the long term guarantee for the Good Friday agreement and no border - it is not intended as a bridge for "a few months" but a permanent backstop should negotiations fail in this area.

She has (publicly) moved nowhere forward in negotiations or understanding (no doubt to appease brexstremist elements in her party)

On the possible extension of the implementation period, a crucial factor here is that the backstop needs to be agreed before entering this period, so this alone gives no further time to negotiate the Northern Ireland Border issue. It is only an extension of Article 50 period (or indeed cancellation thereof) that would extend the period of negotiation on the backstop.

zkojq wrote:

Maybe time for the UK to start stepping up plans for 'No Deal'.

It is likely that Parliament would not allow a "no deal" through parliament - although Theresa May is trying to obstruct this democratic process.

This is often not mentioned as this is Theresa Mays only way of appearing tough to her domestic audience. Adam Boulton (Sky News journalist) has even off the record been told by a Brexit supporting MP that it would lead the UK into a recession. Nearly all the opposition parties would try obstruct a no deal in parliament, meaning only a handful of conservatives are needed - which would appear to be the case.

Bostrom wrote:

zkojq wrote:

Maybe time for the UK to start stepping up plans for 'No Deal'.

It seems like the UK is quietly starting to prepare for no deal. https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-plan ... exit-deal/

It's been publishing no deal guidance on a range of subjects for months. There is no such thing as 'no deal'. Leaving without a deal means a WTO solution.

sevenair wrote:

It's been publishing no deal guidance on a range of subjects for months. There is no such thing as 'no deal'. Leaving without a deal means a WTO solution.

"no deal" refers to the UK having no deal with the EU on leaving, that means no agreements in place on everything from transport, digital, money, tax, rights etc.

Unless "mini deals" are then separately done, it literally means amongst other things no flights between EU and UK.

Defaulting to WTO terms would also offer, in the short term, no deal, as there are no schedules in place (although trade can happen, it would be subject to future legal disputes) and no Government Procurement contracts would currently be allowed (2 trillion USD market which has been blocked for UK by New Zealand, Moldova and USA).

As such a "No Deal" or WTO option (if that's how you prefer to phrase it) is a very dangerous place for our economy.

WTO is the only solution to the freedom, control and sovereignty that brexit was to deliver.

sevenair wrote:

WTO is the only solution to the freedom, control and sovereignty that brexit was to deliver.

Well as we've proven time and time again, leaving to trade under WTO rules is utter madness. The way the WTO is going right now with Trump and China, I'd think a level of certainty with the words biggest single market, and access to over 80 trade agreements with countries outside of the EU is a billion times better than that.

And you're off with 'Sovereignty' again. Pathetic.

sevenair wrote:

WTO is the only solution to the freedom, control and sovereignty that brexit was to deliver.

So
- loss of all 65+ trade deals
- no WTO schedules
- no government procurement contracts
- all trade subject to future legal dispute and uncertainty
- loss of transport links to E.U.
- no transition phase for our businesses to migrate to new structure
- failure of Good Friday agreement
- years to negotiate any new trade deals, which over time would likely just replace what we had

There are the bad bits, what are the good bits of WTO / no deal option?

https://youtu.be/X8aiAphx2L0

A good watch.

Arion640 wrote:

https://youtu.be/X8aiAphx2L0

A good watch.

And yet we already did not use the full EU immigration rules available to us, so this does not really fly.

Richard28 wrote:

There are the bad bits, what are the good bits of WTO / no deal option?

Blue passports? Joking aside, as someone watching from one of the EU27 countries it's really hard to understand british politics at the moment.

Bostrom wrote:

Richard28 wrote:

There are the bad bits, what are the good bits of WTO / no deal option?

Blue passports? Joking aside, as someone watching from one of the EU27 countries it's really hard to understand british politics at the moment.

I don’t think anyone in Britain understands British Politics at the minute.

I wonder if anymore letters have gone to the 22 today.

sevenair wrote:

WTO is the only solution to the freedom, control and sovereignty that brexit was to deliver.

Exactly. Taking back control.

Arion640 wrote:

sevenair wrote:

WTO is the only solution to the freedom, control and sovereignty that brexit was to deliver.

Exactly. Taking back control.

Well, some countries are objecting to the UK............

sevenair wrote:

Bostrom wrote:

zkojq wrote:

Maybe time for the UK to start stepping up plans for 'No Deal'.

It seems like the UK is quietly starting to prepare for no deal. https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-plan ... exit-deal/

It's been publishing no deal guidance on a range of subjects for months. There is no such thing as 'no deal'. Leaving without a deal means a WTO solution.

Yeah... their advice to northern Ireland businesses is: talk to the RoI government. In other words: we don't have a clue or plan.

Of course there is a no deal Brexit, especially since there is no WTO solution. You don't have a deal at the WTO, you are only a member.
Your WTO solution means either:
a) copy everything the EU does and hope all WTO members agree, with no say for the UK
b) dropping all import tariffs and trade barriers to zero unilaterally, opening your market completely and never ever have any say about tariffs or trade barriers ever again. Everybody else will of course apply their schedule tariffs to yiur products.

It would appear that a no deal Brexit does make you a (trade) vassal state of the EU or every other WTO members bitch.

And different to the EU many former Colonies seem to have an axe to grind.....

Best regards
Thonas

Arion640 wrote:

https://youtu.be/X8aiAphx2L0

A good watch.

Hans-Olaf Henkel is a deep-fringe crank and conspiracy theorist with zero actual influence and even less actual insights into anything.

He's just reinforcing other people with similar bonkers ideas.

Arion640 wrote:

sevenair wrote:

WTO is the only solution to the freedom, control and sovereignty that brexit was to deliver.

Exactly. Taking back control.

Please do explain how I am democratically eepresented at the WTO and the control we will have over the other 163 members agreeing our quotas and tariffs.

You may want to examine the case of Moldova I posted above.

Your ‘taking back contril’ Statement is all air and no substance (and always has been)

Klaus wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

https://youtu.be/X8aiAphx2L0

A good watch.

Hans-Olaf Henkel is a deep-fringe crank and conspiracy theorist with zero actual influence and even less actual insights into anything.

He's just reinforcing other people with similar bonkers ideas.

Another person who doesn’t agree with your view point, oh well he must be a maniac then!

I'm mostly switched-off to the Brexit debate, even though it will affect us here in Ireland more than most otther EU countries (I can only take so much speculation: wake me up when it's over and give me the bad news), but there is one thing I am curious about: the DUP have ten seats at Westminster and have Teresa May over a barrel. Sinn Féin have only seven, so is there any way they could affect any Brexit vote? I'm thinking of defections or abstentions from the major parties, or are they ever an issue? I'm just curious as I'm sick to death of their pontificating and lecturing about Brexit, yet they refuse to take their seats.

Sin Fein whilst holding seats at Westminster have never used them on principle, so their Seven seats and votes are in effect wasted in this debate.

They could always change their minds and have a vote, but have always said they would not do this.

Richard28 wrote:

Sin Fein whilst holding seats at Westminster have never used them on principle, so their Seven seats and votes are in effect wasted in this debate.

They could always change their minds and have a vote, but have always said they would not do this.

Yes, I know, but I'm just wondering what would happen IF they did. They are coming under increasing pressure here to do so. Their argument is that it wouldn't affect the numbers, but if there were defections or abstentions it would. So I'm wondering if that could ever be a possibility?

Even without Sinn Fein, parliamentary arithmetic means Theresa May needs labour support to accept her deal, and it is likely that parliament would block a no deal solution based on current numbers.

So am not sure their votes are entirely necessary, however like all these things precise numbers are not known so it would certainly make life harder for the DUP and the brexstremists if they did come on board.

Great News for the EU:

Singapore - EU trade deal is signed http://news.trust.org//item/20181019084742-40h3d/

Bad news for the UK:

Unless we stay in Customs Union we will not benefit from this
oh, and it took 8 years to negotiate....

Brexit is not "going global"

Richard28 wrote:

Unless we stay in Customs Union we will not benefit from this
oh, and it took 8 years to negotiate....

Brexit is not "going global"

But you'll be "Taking back control", whatever that means.

agill wrote:

But you'll be "Taking back control", whatever that means.

Nope!! Governments such as Moldova have more influence on our economic future than the British people have after Brexit!

Arion640 wrote:

Klaus wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

https://youtu.be/X8aiAphx2L0

A good watch.

Hans-Olaf Henkel is a deep-fringe crank and conspiracy theorist with zero actual influence and even less actual insights into anything.

He's just reinforcing other people with similar bonkers ideas.

Another person who doesn’t agree with your view point, oh well he must be a maniac then!

The problem is that you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, hard, to come up with any people outside of the UK thinking that Brexit was a great idea.

Klaus wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

Klaus wrote:

Hans-Olaf Henkel is a deep-fringe crank and conspiracy theorist with zero actual influence and even less actual insights into anything.

He's just reinforcing other people with similar bonkers ideas.

Another person who doesn’t agree with your view point, oh well he must be a maniac then!

The problem is that you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, hard, to come up with any people outside of the UK thinking that Brexit was a great idea.

There’s plenty around the world who think brexit is a great idea. No barrel scraping required.

Richard28 wrote:

agill wrote:

But you'll be "Taking back control", whatever that means.

Nope!! Governments such as Moldova have more influence on our economic future than the British people have after Brexit!

What a silly statement, how on earth did you draw that conclusion?

Arion640 wrote:

There’s plenty around the world who think brexit is a great idea. No barrel scraping required.

Only those of a very right wing persuasion, those with something to gain, those who are as uniformed as a lot of Brexiteers in the UK or those who have no knowledge of how the EU works. Ordinary folk think it's stupid.

Arion640 wrote:

What a silly statement, how on earth did you draw that conclusion?

Because one small, seemingly insignificant nation has shown how it can screw the UK's efforts to gain trade deal: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... 7-trillion along with others many think will do us favors, i.e USA, New Zealand. WTO is like the wild west.

Reinhardt wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

What a silly statement, how on earth did you draw that conclusion?

Because one small, seemingly insignificant nation has shown how it can screw the UK's efforts to gain trade deal: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... 7-trillion along with others many think will do us favors, i.e USA, New Zealand. WTO is like the wild west.

Indeed, do keep up Arion640. If you are so keen on WTO terms / Hard Brexit you should be up to date with the GPA position and the vetos we received yesterday, posted in the previous thread:

Richard28 wrote:

So today our WTO Government Procurement Agreement was blocked by:

- USA
- New Zealand
- Moldova

interesting piece on why Moldova blocked is here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... 7-trillion

The UK is putting itself in such a weak position here.... it's frankly embarrassing.

Arion640 wrote:

Richard28 wrote:

agill wrote:

But you'll be "Taking back control", whatever that means.

Nope!! Governments such as Moldova have more influence on our economic future than the British people have after Brexit!

What a silly statement, how on earth did you draw that conclusion?

Try reading the last couple of pages of the last thread.

"WTO rules" means being beholden to every other country on Earth *LETTING US* do trade deals!

Arion640 wrote:

Richard28 wrote:

agill wrote:

But you'll be "Taking back control", whatever that means.

Nope!! Governments such as Moldova have more influence on our economic future than the British people have after Brexit!

What a silly statement, how on earth did you draw that conclusion?

UK wanted, Moldova said no, UK didn't get. Easy.

Best regards
Thomas

BRINO, "Brexit in Name Only".

tommy1808 wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

Richard28 wrote:

Nope!! Governments such as Moldova have more influence on our economic future than the British people have after Brexit!

What a silly statement, how on earth did you draw that conclusion?

UK wanted, Moldova said no, UK didn't get. Easy.

Best regards
Thomas

Sure. But what does this have to do with the UK’s future?

Arion640 wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

What a silly statement, how on earth did you draw that conclusion?

UK wanted, Moldova said no, UK didn't get. Easy.

Best regards
Thomas

Sure. But what does this have to do with the UK’s future?

Jeez, do we have to explain this to you, really?

If you are a British company trying to sell to US, American, Australian etc governments, or are an employee of one of those companies then quite frankly it matters a lot, and could determine whether those companies and employees stay in the UK or not.

through Brexit we not only lose democratic representation and a seat at the table in negotiations, we are going forward hostage to other states, for whatever reason or grudge they may hold.

Richard28 wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

UK wanted, Moldova said no, UK didn't get. Easy.

Best regards
Thomas

Sure. But what does this have to do with the UK’s future?

Jeez, do we have to explain this to you, really?

If you are a British company trying to sell to US, American, Australian etc governments, or are an employee of one of those companies then quite frankly it matters a lot, and could determine whether those companies and employees stay in the UK or not.

through Brexit we not only lose democratic representation and a seat at the table in negotiations, we are going forward hostage to other states, for whatever reason or grudge they may hold.

Still really don’t understand what point you’re trying to raise.

Arion640 wrote:

Still really don’t understand what point you’re trying to raise.

Ask me a question and I will answer it.

Anyhow, seeing as you're here Arion640.....

how about your long promised answer to the Northern Ireland question.... you said you had one three months ago, but have continually refused to share it, I'm sure lots of politicians would love to hear it, as no-one still seems to have an answer for this one....

Arion640 wrote:

I’m not sure where this whole NI border thing has come from that i have to apparently answer?

Richard28 wrote:

OK I'll try again:

How can you honour the Good Friday Agreement and avoid having a hard border with Northern Ireland, either:

a) on the Northern Ireland Border, or
b) in the Irish Sea

whilst avoiding extremely close harmonisation of rules and standards and being in a customs union with the EU.

I’ll answer your points regarding Northern ireland.

Arion640 wrote:

Sure. But what does this have to do with the UK’s future?

This is your future. Instead of the biggest market to get access to, it is just the puny UK market. No one dares pissing the EU of over government procurement risking losinng access to that market or even impeding that a bit, but the UK market alone is way, way to unimportant to even have small countries like that care about pissing you off.
Hence your future is: No sovereignty on trade, much, much less control than now.

Best regards
Thomas

Richard28 wrote:

Great News for the EU:

Singapore - EU trade deal is signed http://news.trust.org//item/20181019084742-40h3d/

Bad news for the UK:

Unless we stay in Customs Union we will not benefit from this
oh, and it took 8 years to negotiate....

Brexit is not "going global"

Why do we need to stay in the Customs Union to do a deal with Singapore?

These four aren't in it and yet somehow they managed a trade deal with Singapore back in 2002.

http://www.efta.int/media/documents/leg ... eement.pdf

Oh sorry, there I go with that dreadful Norway option thing again, which remain and leave alike keep rubbishing with their lies.

In fact, can any of you actually explain how any Brexit deal where we stay in the CU actually solves any of our issues? Certainly doesn't solve the Irish border one.

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

In fact, can any of you actually explain how any Brexit deal where we stay in the CU actually solves any of our issues? Certainly doesn't solve the Irish border one.

There simply is no border issue if you stay in the customs union. It would solve all problems but the imagined once almost as good as simply staying in the EU.

Why do we need to stay in the Customs Union to do a deal with Singapore

You don't

These four aren't in it and yet somehow they managed a trade deal with Singapore back in 2002

A) Singapore did' t have a reason to tell them "sort your dealings with the EU out first".
B) they had all the time in the world to get the deal registered at the WTO
C) there wasn't a directly competing free trade agreement
D) there was no pre-existing closely not business relationship with other countries to consider.

Best regards
Thomas

tommy1808 wrote:

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

In fact, can any of you actually explain how any Brexit deal where we stay in the CU actually solves any of our issues? Certainly doesn't solve the Irish border one.

There simply is no border issue if you stay in the customs union. It would solve all problems but the imagined once almost as good as simply staying in the EU.

Just staying in the CU doesn't solve the border issue. Turkey is in a CU with the EU and the border for people is still quite hard (visa needed). Norway, OTOH, is not on the CU because of their opt-outs on things like fisheries, agriculture, etc. Remember the 2011 butter crisis in Norway, where several people were caught smuggling butter into Norway (mostly from Sweden).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_butter_crisis

They have freedom of movement, though.

So, in order for the border in Ireland to be invisible you need to be both in the CU and have freedom of movement. Anything else is just different levels of hardness and enforcement. It's up to the UK to figure out just how hard is acceptable.

To have no border you need common rules and standards, eg single market, you also need no customs checks, hence customs union is also needed.

Freedom of movement is one of the four pillars of the single market which the E.U. will not give up and UK wants to cherry pick.

You do not need E.U. membership to have either customs union (eg Turkey) or Single Market (eg Norway)

Both of which were also not on the 2016 referendum so it is not against ‘the will of the people’ to adopt these positions.

Doing this would also retain numerous trade agreements including new one with Singapore, upcoming with Australia and New Zealand.

This combination is often referred to as Norway+

While the march was nice, nothing will stop Brexit now. I very much doubt that the ECJ says that a leaving member can cancel its article 50...

Richard28 wrote:

You do not need E.U. membership to have either customs union (eg Turkey) or Single Market (eg Norway)

Turkey isn't in THE Customs Union. It's in A customs union. There is no precedent for a major state not in the EU to be a member of THE Customs Union.

Richard28 wrote:

Both of which were also not on the 2016 referendum so it is not against ‘the will of the people’ to adopt these positions.

I'd be quite happy with the Norway option. In fact, most people probably would if it was explained to them.

Maybe something like this:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DnuR7rOW0AAzld4.jpg