And if membership of the Single Market is incompatible with Brexit, for practical purposes?
Which it is.
We are leaving the EU and therefore the Single Market. There was only one even vaguely plausible route by which we could leave the EU and remain in the Single Market, namely the EEA option (were it to be available to us, which is not a given). However, that option was firmly closed off by the Leave campaign, who made immigration the centrepiece of their case. If they had wanted us to join the EEA, they should have said that was the goal, and accepted that therefore leaving the EU would make no difference to EU immigration. (They would of course have lost if they'd done that). Instead, they won, using control over immigration as the principal advantage of leaving. OK, Dan Hannan might not agree. But what he thinks is as irrelevant as what Nick Clegg thinks - even more so, in fact, since he was a member of the Vote Leave policy committee which deliberately decided that immigration was to be the centrepiece of their campaign.
I've been somwhat critical of our new PM on various points, but on this central point I think she absolutely 'gets it'. Brexit means Brexit, we must have substantial control over immigration , and therefore we will not be 'in' the Single Market under any circumstances. Once you've accepted that, everything becomes much clearer: we are talking about degree of access to the Single Market from the outside. Maximising that, within the political constraints, should be the top priority of the government, and I believe it is.
As for disunity in the government, I don't think this is (yet) as big a problem as some are making out, for one very simple reason: currently it's the boys quarrelling, but the Head Mistress hasn't come down on one side or the other. Her personal authority is (as yet) completely unchallenged. That might change, and it is true that as time goes on it becomes more likely to change, but for now she's 100% in control. That is another reason why delay to triggering Article 50 couldn't go on too long.
I agree. I think some of the PB Leavers got themselves into a comfort zone which saw (perhaps rightly, perhaps it was the least bad option) that if we did leave the EU then we should bloody well join the EEA. It was never about immigration for these people.
But their reaction since the vote has been little short of extraordinary; as you say, May gets what is needed. And she has put three out and out Leavers in control of our leaving. And our PBLeaverss are amazed by it. But who on earth did they think would get the leaving gig post an Out vote - Anna Soubry?
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
It's a shame it wasn't because it is a proper long term solution. Expanding LHR or Gatwick with just one extra runway is just a sticking plaster solution for a few more years. We had all this drama about Terminal 5, now about the third runway, it will be something else in a few years time. If Hong Kong could build a new worldclass airport I think we could too.
Why would you have to fudge it? It's there and has been previously utilised. The real issue is 'How long for'. The answer to that is more complex, and reliant on the parameters on which a final FTA would be based. It might take significant time - but EEA/EFTA takes the pressure off, and allows a degree of face saving on the EU side (which can be mitigated here if May is careful).
The use by Liechtenstein was itself a fudge (basically they made a transitional arrangement, which the EU keeps agreeing to extend), but it's easier to argue there's something exceptional if you've got a population under 40,000 and most of them are immigrants.
And if membership of the Single Market is incompatible with Brexit, for practical purposes?
Which it is.
We are leaving the EU and therefore the Single Market. There was only one even vaguely plausible route by which we could leave the EU and remain in the Single Market, namely the EEA option (were it to be available to us, which is not a given). However, that option was firmly closed off by the Leave campaign, who made immigration the centrepiece of their case. If they had wanted us to join the EEA, they should have said that was the goal, and accepted that therefore leaving the EU would make no difference to EU immigration. (They would of course have lost if they'd done that). Instead, they won, using control over immigration as the principal advantage of leaving. OK, Dan Hannan might not agree. But what he thinks is as irrelevant as what Nick Clegg thinks - even more so, in fact, since he was a member of the Vote Leave policy committee which deliberately decided that immigration was to be the centrepiece of their campaign.
I've been somwhat critical of our new PM on various points, but on this central point I think she absolutely 'gets it'. Brexit means Brexit, we must have substantial control over immigration , and therefore we will not be 'in' the Single Market under any circumstances. Once you've accepted that, everything becomes much clearer: we are talking about degree of access to the Single Market from the outside. Maximising that, within the political constraints, should be the top priority of the government, and I believe it is.
As for disunity in the government, I don't think this is (yet) as big a problem as some are making out, for one very simple reason: currently it's the boys quarrelling, but the Head Mistress hasn't come down on one side or the other. Her personal authority is (as yet) completely unchallenged. That might change, and it is true that as time goes on it becomes more likely to change, but for now she's 100% in control. That is another reason why delay to triggering Article 50 couldn't go on too long.
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A number are actually saying that that option is not even permissible after the referendum. Leave won by very carefully refusing to define what Brexit would mean thereby maximising its vote - it cannot then retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
Oh dear. The worst kind of dithering. The whole industry has been briefed that Heathrow has got the go ahead. Just announce it and be damned. A u turn now would make the nation into a laughing stock.
On that she's not dithereing - she's moving the decision from Cabinet to a committee she has stuffed with ministers who will vote the way she wants. Smart politics.
That committee meeting was supposed to take place tomorrow, now it's next week. Methinks Witney is going to be a lot closer than people realise right now.
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
Time limited EEA would fly if it also included a stop to free movement of people and at the same time was accompanied by a long-term-residency test (e.g. UK NI number for 5 years - these still get issued to kids quite young, right?) for in work benefits
As Ms Cyclefree put it, 'Why' the EU insist on free movement of people, an inherently political construct, for a single market. It is not necessary in the way free movement of goods, capital and services are....
The problem with time limited EEA is that our EU and EEA partners may not agree to it as they want a resolution to our membership not storing up problems for the future. But even more seriously it would leave a grey cloud of a questionmark as to our future for every business for the next next decade.
We need to resolve this and know one way or another what is happening so businesses can plan for the future.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
We no longer possess the vision of Victorian industrialists. It's what they would have done. And people would still be marvelling at it a century and a half on...
The Chinese would have it build within 5-7 years.
Our leadership class are too busy fretting that they are being forced out of their expensive junket club.
It is also worth considering the nearby London Gateway, a project that is fairly similar (on a smaller, bust still large scale) to Boris Island. Planning given in 2008, with construction starting in 2010 and the first phase accepting ships in 2013.
Richard N is very often right, but his analysis about the vote morally requiring an exit from the SM is wrong. The Leave campaign also campaigned on £350 million extra a week for the NHS. By Richard's reasoning then any Brexit resolution which failed to guarantee exactly that would be equally unacceptable.
Exactly. I'm a Leaver. I'd reluctantly accept Hard Brexit (with great trepidation), but I'd much prefer a Soft Brexit. I'd accept us staying in the Single Market (with an eye, maybe, to eventually leaving), with reduced contributions in exchange for qualifications on Free Movement (and I think this is perfectly do-able, if people on both sides are sensible)
We'd have regained an awful lot of sovereignty, in many other areas outside the SM.
But above all, I want the government to negotiate the best Brexit deal they can. That's all we voted for. Brexit. The "Single Market" was not mentioned on the ballot.
The sad irony here is that the Remainers, if they united with people like me, could probably force a soft Brexit. But in their histrionics they make a Hard Brexit more likely.
"Soft Brexit" is the new fairy tale Brexiteers tell themselves to make them feel better about the terrible consequences of their vote...
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
Wrong place - inaccessible to most people in the southern half of the UK, who use Heathrow, no infrastructure or transport connections. As a new build more disruptive than a an existing development. Greater environmental impact. More people lose their homes. Much more expensive all in and also riskier.
On the plus side there would be less noise impact than at Heathrow.
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A number are actually saying that that option is not even permissible after the referendum. Leave won by very carefully refusing to define what Brexit would mean thereby maximising its vote - it cannot then retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
That's just not true at all, it is a complete fabrication. Leave actually made a great number of claims, not all of which may come true. Leave claimed we would stop making any contributions, that we would regain full sovereignty, that we would leave the ECJ and control immigration. These were all very specific claims made by Vote Leave.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
Richard N is very often right, but his analysis about the vote morally requiring an exit from the SM is wrong. The Leave campaign also campaigned on £350 million extra a week for the NHS. By Richard's reasoning then any Brexit resolution which failed to guarantee exactly that would be equally unacceptable.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
We no longer possess the vision of Victorian industrialists. It's what they would have done. And people would still be marvelling at it a century and a half on...
The Chinese would have it build within 5-7 years.
Our leadership class are too busy fretting that they are being forced out of their expensive junket club.
Its pathetic.
Different world in China. Once spoke to Chinese official re the building of Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital Airport, which is huge.Asked about whether it was difficult to build and the people who lived where it was built. "We told them to move, they did" was all he said.
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A number are actually saying that that option is not even permissible after the referendum. Leave won by very carefully refusing to define what Brexit would mean thereby maximising its vote - it cannot then retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
That's just not true at all, it is a complete fabrication. Leave actually made a great number of claims, not all of which may come true. Leave claimed we would stop making any contributions, that we would regain full sovereignty, that we would leave the ECJ and control immigration. These were all very specific claims made by Vote Leave.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
And if membership of the Single Market is incompatible with Brexit, for practical purposes?
Which it is.
We are leaving the EU and therefore the Single Market. There was only one even vaguely plausible route by which we could leave the EU and remain in the Single Market, namely the EEA option (were it to be available to us, which is not a given). However, that option was firmly closed off by the Leave campaign, who made immigration the centrepiece of their case. If they had wanted us to join the EEA, they should have said that was the goal, and accepted that therefore leaving the EU would make no difference to EU immigration. (They would of course have lost if they'd done that). Instead, they won, using control over immigration as the principal advantage of leaving. OK, Dan Hannan might not agree. But what he thinks is as irrelevant as what Nick Clegg thinks - even more so, in fact, since he was a member of the Vote Leave policy committee which deliberately decided that immigration was to be the centrepiece of their campaign.
I've been somwhat critical of our new PM on various points, but on this central point I think she absolutely 'gets it'. Brexit means Brexit, we must have substantial control over immigration , and therefore we will not be 'in' the Single Market under any circumstances. Once you've accepted that, everything becomes much clearer: we are talking about degree of access to the Single Market from the outside. Maximising that, within the political constraints, should be the top priority of the government, and I believe it is.
As for disunity in the government, I don't think this is (yet) as big a problem as some are making out, for one very simple reason: currently it's the boys quarrelling, but the Head Mistress hasn't come down on one side or the other. Her personal authority is (as yet) completely unchallenged. That might change, and it is true that as time goes on it becomes more likely to change, but for now she's 100% in control. That is another reason why delay to triggering Article 50 couldn't go on too long.
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A number are actually saying that that option is not even permissible after the referendum. Leave won by very carefully refusing to define what Brexit would mean thereby maximising its vote - it cannot then retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
That's just not true at all, it is a complete fabrication. Leave actually made a great number of claims, not all of which may come true. Leave claimed we would stop making any contributions, that we would regain full sovereignty, that we would leave the ECJ and control immigration. These were all very specific claims made by Vote Leave.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
Vote leave is not in power.
Nobody is in power. But Leave Campaign people are in office. They could take power if they could work out WTF they wanted to do.
Can someone explain Mr Clegg's thinking - how export tariffs affect domestic prices - or indeed import prices?
The price of chocolate, cheese and wine will increase sharply if Britain heads towards a so-called hard Brexit, according to Nick Clegg.
Speaking ahead of a Liberal Democrats food and drink Brexit impact report, he warned that Britain could only avoid tariffs on beef exports of 59%, chocolate at 38%, cheese at 40% and wine at 14%, with a soft Brexit.
Of course, Tusk has already explained that the alternative to 'Hard Brexit' is 'No Brexit'.....which evidently is what Mr Clegg is after.....
Britain could certainly unilaterally open its markets to imports from countries that charged tariffs on British exports. But does anyone think it would?
There are more sources of cheese, wine & chocolate than the EU.....
not decent ones that people want though
Nothing wrong with many Southern Hemisphere wines.
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile (even, whisper it quietly, Argentina if they're not being silly buggers...)
And if membership of the Single Market is incompatible with Brexit, for practical purposes?
Which it is.
We are leaving the EU and therefore the Single Market. There was only one even vaguely plausible route by which we could leave the EU and remain in the Single Market, namely the EEA option (were it to be available to us, which is not a given). However, that option was firmly closed off by the Leave campaign, who made immigration the centrepiece of their case. If they had wanted us to join the EEA, they should have said that was the goal, and accepted that therefore leaving the EU would make no difference to EU immigration. (They would of course have lost if they'd done that). Instead, they won, using control over immigration as the principal advantage of leaving. OK, Dan Hannan might not agree. But what he thinks is as irrelevant as what Nick Clegg thinks - even more so, in fact, since he was a member of the Vote Leave policy committee which deliberately decided that immigration was to be the centrepiece of their campaign.
I've been somwhat critical of our new PM on various points, but on this central point I think she absolutely 'gets it'. Brexit means Brexit, we must have substantial control over immigration , and therefore we will not be 'in' the Single Market under any circumstances. Once you've accepted that, everything becomes much clearer: we are talking about degree of access to the Single Market from the outside. Maximising that, within the political constraints, should be the top priority of the government, and I believe it is.
As for disunity in the government, I don't think this is (yet) as big a problem as some are making out, for one very simple reason: currently it's the boys quarrelling, but the Head Mistress hasn't come down on one side or the other. Her personal authority is (as yet) completely unchallenged. That might change, and it is true that as time goes on it becomes more likely to change, but for now she's 100% in control. That is another reason why delay to triggering Article 50 couldn't go on too long.
Possibly the best post on the subject we've been discussing for months.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
Wrong place - inaccessible to most people in the southern half of the UK, who use Heathrow, no infrastructure or transport connections. As a new build more disruptive than a an existing development. Greater environmental impact. More people lose their homes. Much more expensive all in and also riskier.
On the plus side there would be less noise impact than at Heathrow.
The accessibility can be fixed with new transport links, as was proposed. As it is, Heathrow can be a pain to get to from where I am (Cambridge), and Gatwick will become much easier once the new Thameslink services start (or have they already?)
On the plus side, if Heathrow was closed you have a massive area of land available for redevelopment. Developers are salivating over Old Oak Common; they'd love Heathrow.
A negative few people think about would be staffing. From memory, around 100,000 people are employed locally by Heathrow or surrounding air-related developments, with most of those on site. Getting staff for Boris Island might be an issue.
(This happened when the massive Queens Medical Centre opened in Nottingham. It was so large there were not enough cleaners available in the local area, and they initially had to offer free busses for cleaners from other parts of Notingham. Or so local legend goes).
''How short your memory is. There is no mandate for a Hard Brexit.''
There is a great video of Andrew Neil tearing a tory MP a new one for peddling precisely this fantasy. The remain campaign itself shouted from the rooftops with the government machine behind it that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market.
Voters were perfectly aware of the implications.
So wait, we should have listened to the Remain campaign for what happened post Brexit? Not the Conservative manifesto from 2015? Nor Daniel Hannan who said a narrow vote to Leave was not a vote for a large change in relationship?
I campaigned tirelessly on here before the referendum to include a supplementary question because I feared exactly this issue.
What is the mandate for the government, other than to leave the EU. There is is no explicit backing for what Leave is. And that's why I believe there should be a General Election sooner rather than later.
I would suggest the mandate for the Government is to negotiate the best terms they can for the UK to exit the EU. It is not in the gift of the UK (or EU) to dictate or impose the entirety of those terms, that is the purpose of the negotiation.
I find it an untenable belief that the majority of voters on both sides of the referendum did not understand this simple truth. The possibilities of economic disaster were adequately voiced by remain, as were the possibilities of the advantages of sovereignty, border control and economic freedom by leave.
Only a deaf idealist with no understanding of life would imagine that either side was offering a solution that would be recognisable as the result of negotiations.
Exactly. I'm a Leaver. I'd reluctantly accept Hard Brexit (with great trepidation), but I'd much prefer a Soft Brexit. I'd accept us staying in the Single Market (with an eye, maybe, to eventually leaving), with reduced contributions in exchange for qualifications on Free Movement (and I think this is perfectly do-able, if people on both sides are sensible)
We'd have regained an awful lot of sovereignty, in many other areas outside the SM.
But above all, I want the government to negotiate the best Brexit deal they can. That's all we voted for. Brexit. The "Single Market" was not mentioned on the ballot.
The sad irony here is that the Remainers, if they united with people like me, could probably force a soft Brexit. But in their histrionics they make a Hard Brexit more likely.
We are uniting with people like you. We are then told by Hard Brexiteers that only Hard Brexit will do. And yet you want to blame Remainers?
Richard N is very often right, but his analysis about the vote morally requiring an exit from the SM is wrong. The Leave campaign also campaigned on £350 million extra a week for the NHS. By Richard's reasoning then any Brexit resolution which failed to guarantee exactly that would be equally unacceptable.
Actually the Leave campaign said we would end EU contributions some of which (not all) would go to the NHS. The specifically part of that £350mn to other causes as well, plus some of it is rebate already.
So yes though if we go on what the Leave campaign said we have to not have any contributions. Which is hard or soft Brexit?
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A number are actually saying that that option is not even permissible after the referendum. Leave won by very carefully refusing to define what Brexit would mean thereby maximising its vote - it cannot then retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
That's just not true at all, it is a complete fabrication. Leave actually made a great number of claims, not all of which may come true. Leave claimed we would stop making any contributions, that we would regain full sovereignty, that we would leave the ECJ and control immigration. These were all very specific claims made by Vote Leave.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
Vote leave is not in power.
So it's ok to run an official campaign wherein any number of claims are made for what would happen post an Out vote, and a manifesto produced, and then when sufficient numbers of the public indeed agree with those claims and vote Leave....they are ignored?
Oh dear. I wonder if that is because Grammar schools might be popular? *innocent face*
Nope, more a reflection on Corbyn.
If you look at the graph, the Tories led during the last parliament, by even larger margins when Dave was rolling out the free schools and promising no more grammar schools.
It is also worth considering the nearby London Gateway, a project that is fairly similar (on a smaller, bust still large scale) to Boris Island. Planning given in 2008, with construction starting in 2010 and the first phase accepting ships in 2013.
We can do it. Perhaps we should.
I have no doubt that eventually we will build a new modern international airport, and when we do everyone will agree that we should have done it sooner.
Richard N is very often right, but his analysis about the vote morally requiring an exit from the SM is wrong. The Leave campaign also campaigned on £350 million extra a week for the NHS. By Richard's reasoning then any Brexit resolution which failed to guarantee exactly that would be equally unacceptable.
Actually the Leave campaign said we would end EU contributions some of which (not all) would go to the NHS. The specifically part of that £350mn to other causes as well, plus some of it is rebate already.
So yes though if we go on what the Leave campaign said we have to not have any contributions. Which is hard or soft Brexit?
No. The Leave campaign specifically said that £350m extra would go to the NHS. As you know.
I think @RichardNabavi is right and globalising Brexiters ( who are vastly over represented on here ) are wrong. May has correctly analysised what Leave was as a cultural event and correctly stated what that means in policy terms. Controlling immigration means you start with a very Hard Brexit then negotiate as much Single Market access as you can to soften it later. But Leave = Immigration Control = Hard Brexit is the basis. And so far that's all May has said. A50 will be invoked, ECA is going, immigration control comes first. But after that May has left everything open. It's signal and noise territory. In the midst of the utter chaos of Brexit stands May's limited but utterly clear analysis.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
Wrong place - inaccessible to most people in the southern half of the UK, who use Heathrow, no infrastructure or transport connections. As a new build more disruptive than a an existing development. Greater environmental impact. More people lose their homes. Much more expensive all in and also riskier.
On the plus side there would be less noise impact than at Heathrow.
The accessibility can be fixed with new transport links, as was proposed. As it is, Heathrow can be a pain to get to from where I am (Cambridge), and Gatwick will become much easier once the new Thameslink services start (or have they already?)
On the plus side, if Heathrow was closed you have a massive area of land available for redevelopment. Developers are salivating over Old Oak Common; they'd love Heathrow.
A negative few people think about would be staffing. From memory, around 100,000 people are employed locally by Heathrow or surrounding air-related developments, with most of those on site. Getting staff for Boris Island might be an issue.
(This happened when the massive Queens Medical Centre opened in Nottingham. It was so large there were not enough cleaners available in the local area, and they initially had to offer free busses for cleaners from other parts of Notingham. Or so local legend goes).
Staffing is a massive issue. Heathrow employs half (probably more) of West London, directly or indirectly. Around the airport there is a whole network of ancillary industry and activity - indeed as someone pointed out earlier, the M4 corridor industries are there largely because of the airport.
The idea that you could simultaneously cancel all these jobs and build thousands of new homes in the space where the jobs were is madness.
Similarly no-one lives in the middle of the Thames Estuary, and the available workforce on the Essex or North Kent coasts wholly inadequate to meet the demand. In practice you'd have to find a way of persuading thousands of people to relocate from west London and find the space and wherewithal to build the required housing and other infrastructure.
Oh dear. I wonder if that is because Grammar schools might be popular? *innocent face*
Nope, more a reflection on Corbyn.
If you look at the graph, the Tories led during the last parliament, by even larger margins when Dave was rolling out the free schools and promising no more grammar schools.
I love the internal inconsistency there.
You're free to set up a school.
But it cant be a grammar school, oh noooo! Not that 'free' after all, eh?
How will our sovereign right to agree to free movement be seen, I wonder, should it come to that, or following the inevitable fudge which will look and sound a lot like free movement?
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A number are actually saying that that option is not even permissible after the referendum. Leave won by very carefully refusing to define what Brexit would mean thereby maximising its vote - it cannot then retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
That's just not true at all, it is a complete fabrication. Leave actually made a great number of claims, not all of which may come true. Leave claimed we would stop making any contributions, that we would regain full sovereignty, that we would leave the ECJ and control immigration. These were all very specific claims made by Vote Leave.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
Vote leave is not in power.
Never said they were I responded to that which I quoted by OllyT who claimed "Leave won by very carefully refusing to define what Brexit would mean". Leave carefully defined what Brexit would mean: It would mean Hard Brexit is what we were told. We were told no contributions, full sovereignty, controlled immigration and no ECJ.
Of course the government could disregard what was claimed and go for a Brexit in name only but they're not going to do so. To claim now that Leave didn't define anything is totally disingenuous.
Oh dear. I wonder if that is because Grammar schools might be popular? *innocent face*
Nope, more a reflection on Corbyn.
If you look at the graph, the Tories led during the last parliament, by even larger margins when Dave was rolling out the free schools and promising no more grammar schools.
I love the internal inconsistency there.
You're free to set up a school.
But it cant be a grammar school, oh noooo! Not that 'free' after all, eh?
Because free schools don't even up shafting the poor like grammar schools do.
Free schools, on the evidence we have available benefits the whole area, not just a select few.
Very interesting to see that the SNP are now saying (FT, Times) that a soft Brexit won't trigger another ref.
God I love the smell of constitutional zugzwang in the morning.
They said that from the off, the language, when it came down to IndyRef trigger, was always about the single market rather than the EU per say
It's really a piece of sophistry - their desire for independence is not predicated on the manner of the Brexit deal. Their ability to win it is. The threat is hollow.
Always good to get informed, in depth analysis with all the extra PB insight and objectivity that distance provides.
Richard N is very often right, but his analysis about the vote morally requiring an exit from the SM is wrong. The Leave campaign also campaigned on £350 million extra a week for the NHS. By Richard's reasoning then any Brexit resolution which failed to guarantee exactly that would be equally unacceptable.
Actually the Leave campaign said we would end EU contributions some of which (not all) would go to the NHS. The specifically part of that £350mn to other causes as well, plus some of it is rebate already.
So yes though if we go on what the Leave campaign said we have to not have any contributions. Which is hard or soft Brexit?
No. The Leave campaign specifically said that £350m extra would go to the NHS. As you know.
And if membership of the Single Market is incompatible with Brexit, for practical purposes?
Which it is.
We are leaving the EU and therefore the Single Market. There was only one even vaguely plausible route by which we could leave the EU and remain in the Single Market, namely the EEA option (were it to be available to us, which is not a given). However, that option was firmly closed off by the Leave campaign, who made immigration the centrepiece of their case. If they had wanted us to join the EEA, they should have said that was the goal, and accepted that therefore leaving the EU would make no difference to EU immigration. (They would of course have lost if they'd done that). Instead, they won, using control over immigration as the principal advantage of leaving. OK, Dan Hannan might not agree. But what he thinks is as irrelevant as what Nick Clegg thinks - even more so, in fact, since he was a member of the Vote Leave policy committee which deliberately decided that immigration was to be the centrepiece of their campaign.
I've been somwhat critical of our new PM on various points, but on this central point I think she absolutely 'gets it'. Brexit means Brexit, we must have substantial control over immigration , and therefore we will not be 'in' the Single Market under any circumstances. Once you've accepted that, everything becomes much clearer: we are talking about degree of access to the Single Market from the outside. Maximising that, within the political constraints, should be the top priority of the government, and I believe it is.
As for disunity in the government, I don't think this is (yet) as big a problem as some are making out, for one very simple reason: currently it's the boys quarrelling, but the Head Mistress hasn't come down on one side or the other. Her personal authority is (as yet) completely unchallenged. That might change, and it is true that as time goes on it becomes more likely to change, but for now she's 100% in control. That is another reason why delay to triggering Article 50 couldn't go on too long.
Richard, your best contribution to the EU debate for many a long day! Super stuff.
Richard N is very often right, but his analysis about the vote morally requiring an exit from the SM is wrong. The Leave campaign also campaigned on £350 million extra a week for the NHS. By Richard's reasoning then any Brexit resolution which failed to guarantee exactly that would be equally unacceptable.
No, fairy tales are not binding.
A fairy tale that was a key plank of the Leave campaign - in exactly the same way that reducing immigration was. You cannot and should not attempt to distinguish between the two.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
No it's been explored to death, even after every competent study agreed it was a dumb non-starter.
That depends on the constraints set on the study. In the long term (50+ years, passenger / freight growth continuing as it has), it is the most sensible, and possibly cheapest, option. Sadly, greater constraints were put on the commission.
I believe that the extra capacity enabled by HR3 will be filled pretty much as soon as it is opened, perhaps moving the bubble of capacity constraints elsewhere (e.g. terminal space, transport). Then we'll be going through this ordeal all over again.
Or, if the point-to-point proponents are to be believed, not.
A third runway will indeed be pretty much full as soon as it opens, which is why the decision has to be for two new runways.
‘After protecting those now in receipt of EU funding, we will still have billions more to spend on our priorities. We propose that at least £5.5 billion of that be spent on the NHS by 2020, giving it a much-needed £100 million per week cash transfusion, and to use £1.7 billion to abolish VAT on household energy bills.’
And if membership of the Single Market is incompatible with Brexit, for practical purposes?
Which it is.
We are leaving the EU and therefore the Single Market. There was only one even vaguely plausible route by which we could leave the EU and remain in the Single Market, namely the EEA option (were it to be available to us, which is not a given). However, that option was firmly closed off by the Leave campaign, who made immigration the centrepiece of their case. If they had wanted us to join the EEA, they should have said that was the goal, and accepted that therefore leaving the EU would make no difference to EU immigration. (They would of course have lost if they'd done that). Instead, they won, using control over immigration as the principal advantage of leaving. OK, Dan Hannan might not agree. But what he thinks is as irrelevant as what Nick Clegg thinks - even more so, in fact, since he was a member of the Vote Leave policy committee which deliberately decided that immigration was to be the centrepiece of their campaign.
I've been somwhat critical of our new PM on various points, but on this central point I think she absolutely 'gets it'. Brexit means Brexit, we must have substantial control over immigration , and therefore we will not be 'in' the Single Market under any circumstances. Once you've accepted that, everything becomes much clearer: we are talking about degree of access to the Single Market from the outside. Maximising that, within the political constraints, should be the top priority of the government, and I believe it is.
As for disunity in the government, I don't think this is (yet) as big a problem as some are making out, for one very simple reason: currently it's the boys quarrelling, but the Head Mistress hasn't come down on one side or the other. Her personal authority is (as yet) completely unchallenged. That might change, and it is true that as time goes on it becomes more likely to change, but for now she's 100% in control. That is another reason why delay to triggering Article 50 couldn't go on too long.
Richard, your best contribution to the EU debate for many a long day! Super stuff.
Oh dear. I wonder if that is because Grammar schools might be popular? *innocent face*
Nope, more a reflection on Corbyn.
If you look at the graph, the Tories led during the last parliament, by even larger margins when Dave was rolling out the free schools and promising no more grammar schools.
I love the internal inconsistency there.
You're free to set up a school.
But it cant be a grammar school, oh noooo! Not that 'free' after all, eh?
Because free schools don't even up shafting the poor like grammar schools do.
Free schools, on the evidence we have available benefits the whole area, not just a select few.
The "whole area" being the nice middle class area, where the pushy parents want a free school so that Jemima and Tarquin don't have to go to the same school as the chavvy kids from the estate down the road.
Oh dear. I wonder if that is because Grammar schools might be popular? *innocent face*
Nope, more a reflection on Corbyn.
If you look at the graph, the Tories led during the last parliament, by even larger margins when Dave was rolling out the free schools and promising no more grammar schools.
I love the internal inconsistency there.
You're free to set up a school.
But it cant be a grammar school, oh noooo! Not that 'free' after all, eh?
Because free schools don't even up shafting the poor like grammar schools do.
Free schools, on the evidence we have available benefits the whole area, not just a select few.
And the poor can move to areas where the good schools are, right?
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
No it's been explored to death, even after every competent study agreed it was a dumb non-starter.
That depends on the constraints set on the study. In the long term (50+ years, passenger / freight growth continuing as it has), it is the most sensible, and possibly cheapest, option. Sadly, greater constraints were put on the commission.
I believe that the extra capacity enabled by HR3 will be filled pretty much as soon as it is opened, perhaps moving the bubble of capacity constraints elsewhere (e.g. terminal space, transport). Then we'll be going through this ordeal all over again.
Or, if the point-to-point proponents are to be believed, not.
"It is the most sensible, possibly cheapest, option".
You're entitled to your own opinion, obviously, but let's not pretend it's anything other than that. The commission's constraints were (in my opinion) pretty sensible. Replacing them with another set to get your preferred answer does not prove anything other than a personal bias.
I believe it will take the best part of a decade to fill up LHR (happy to be corrected). So that's around 2040. If more capacity is needed, let's have that debate in 2030.
Richard N is very often right, but his analysis about the vote morally requiring an exit from the SM is wrong. The Leave campaign also campaigned on £350 million extra a week for the NHS. By Richard's reasoning then any Brexit resolution which failed to guarantee exactly that would be equally unacceptable.
Actually the Leave campaign said we would end EU contributions some of which (not all) would go to the NHS. The specifically part of that £350mn to other causes as well, plus some of it is rebate already.
So yes though if we go on what the Leave campaign said we have to not have any contributions. Which is hard or soft Brexit?
No. The Leave campaign specifically said that £350m extra would go to the NHS. As you know.
Richard N is very often right, but his analysis about the vote morally requiring an exit from the SM is wrong. The Leave campaign also campaigned on £350 million extra a week for the NHS. By Richard's reasoning then any Brexit resolution which failed to guarantee exactly that would be equally unacceptable.
Actually the Leave campaign said we would end EU contributions some of which (not all) would go to the NHS. The specifically part of that £350mn to other causes as well, plus some of it is rebate already.
So yes though if we go on what the Leave campaign said we have to not have any contributions. Which is hard or soft Brexit?
No. The Leave campaign specifically said that £350m extra would go to the NHS. As you know.
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A number are actually saying that that option is not even permissible after the referendum. Leave won by very carefully refusing to define what Brexit would mean thereby maximising its vote - it cannot then retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
That's just not true at all, it is a complete fabrication. Leave actually made a great number of claims, not all of which may come true. Leave claimed we would stop making any contributions, that we would regain full sovereignty, that we would leave the ECJ and control immigration. These were all very specific claims made by Vote Leave.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
Vote leave is not in power.
So it's ok to run an official campaign wherein any number of claims are made for what would happen post an Out vote, and a manifesto produced, and then when sufficient numbers of the public indeed agree with those claims and vote Leave....they are ignored?
Well that would mirror the campaign to take us INTO the Common Market, which told endless lies about "no loss of sovereignty", "this is not a superstate", so there's a rather admirable historic circularity here. Irony, and Closure.
And yet successive UK governments signed up to each and every new EU treaty.
There's a good chance there will be a fudge. Probably semantic. Remember May talking about a bespoke deal. She's aiming for something very like Single Market access, but called something else to save face. There will be virtually free movement, but called something else to save face, maybe with some form of EFTA style emergency brake. We will still have to make large contributions, but we'll call it European Cohesion Aid for Blind Romanian Orphans, to save face.
The Europeans will be able to say we got a shit deal, May will be able to say we left the EU and Single Market without too much damage, and we have control over the borders.
On that bit I agree with you. One of the points I've repeatedly made here is that we need to think of ways in which our EU friends can claim they have 'won' in the negotiations and that there has been a 'cost' to the UK leaving. Our aim should be to make those as cosmetic as possible, thus protecting our economy (and especially the City) as much as possible. One example would be for an end to financial passporting, replacing it with regulatory equivalence which has much the same practical effect. They can crow about the former and we can quietly get on with making money using the latter.
And if membership of the Single Market is incompatible with Brexit, for practical purposes?
Which it is.
We are leaving the EU and therefore the Single Market. There was only one even vaguely plausible route by which we could leave the EU and remain in the Single Market, namely the EEA option (were it to be available to us, which is not a given). However, that option was firmly closed off by the Leave campaign, who made immigration the centrepiece of their case. If they had wanted us to join the EEA, they should have said that was the goal, and accepted tha, but for now she's 100% in control. That is another reason why delay to triggering Article 50 couldn't go on too long.
That's a brilliant summary Richard.
Brilliant and wrong
Yes, wrong. It ignores the enormous capacity of the EU to fudge, and can-kick (the two things it is good at).
There's a good chance there will be a fudge. Probably semantic. Remember May talking about a bespoke deal. She's aiming for something very like Single Market access, but called something else to save face. There will be virtually free movement, but called something else to save face, maybe with some form of EFTA style emergency brake. We will still have to make large contributions, but we'll call it European Cohesion Aid for Blind Romanian Orphans, to save face.
The Europeans will be able to say we got a shit deal, May will be able to say we left the EU and Single Market without too much damage, and we have control over the borders.
Both will be right, and both will find it sellable. Job done. Hardcore Remainiacs and John Redwoods will hate it.
'Emergency brakes'? What you describe sounds suspiciously like Dave's deal.
@faisalislam: Number 10: PM "has full confidence" in Chancellor, "respects the independence of the @bankofengland" and is "clear in her support" of Carney
Oh dear. I wonder if that is because Grammar schools might be popular? *innocent face*
Nope, more a reflection on Corbyn.
If you look at the graph, the Tories led during the last parliament, by even larger margins when Dave was rolling out the free schools and promising no more grammar schools.
I love the internal inconsistency there.
You're free to set up a school.
But it cant be a grammar school, oh noooo! Not that 'free' after all, eh?
Because free schools don't even up shafting the poor like grammar schools do.
Free schools, on the evidence we have available benefits the whole area, not just a select few.
And the poor can move to areas where the good schools are, right?
Oh, wait....
That's why the Gover and Morgn we're rolling out free schools to poorer areas.
After protecting those now in receipt of EU funding, we will still have billions more to spend on our priorities. We propose that at least £5.5 billion of that be spent on the NHS by 2020, giving it a much-needed £100 million per week cash transfusion, and to use £1.7 billion to abolish VAT on household energy bills.
Either way the £350m was still spent a fraction of the times over than Ed Miliband's mansion tax at least.
And if membership of the Single Market is incompatible with Brexit, for practical purposes?
Which it is.
We are leaving the EU and therefore the Single Market. There was only one even vaguely plausible route by which we could leave the EU and remain in the Single Market, namely the EEA option (were it to be available to us, which is not a given). However, that option was firmly closed off by the Leave campaign, who made immigration the centrepiece of their case. If they had wanted us to join the EEA, they should have said that was the goal, and accepted that therefore leaving the EU would make no difference to EU immigration. (They would of course have lost if they'd done that). Instead, they won, using control over immigration as the principal advantage of leaving. OK, Dan Hannan might not agree. But what he thinks is as irrelevant as what Nick Clegg thinks - even more so, in fact, since he was a member of the Vote Leave policy committee which deliberately decided that immigration was to be the centrepiece of their campaign.
I've been somwhat critical of our new PM on various points, but on this central point I think she absolutely 'gets it'. Brexit means Brexit, we must have substantial control over immigration , and therefore we will not be 'in' the Single Market under any circumstances. Once you've accepted that, everything becomes much clearer: we are talking about degree of access to the Single Market from the outside. Maximising that, within the political constraints, should be the top priority of the government, and I believe it is.
As for disunity in the government, I don't think this is (yet) as big a problem as some are making out, for one very simple reason: currently it's the boys quarrelling, but the Head Mistress hasn't come down on one side or the other. Her personal authority is (as yet) completely unchallenged. That might change, and it is true that as time goes on it becomes more likely to change, but for now she's 100% in control. That is another reason why delay to triggering Article 50 couldn't go on too long.
Richard, your best contribution to the EU debate for many a long day! Super stuff.
Super - and wrong
I was praising Richard's contribution to the EU debate. Perhaps you'd like to do the same - and give us an equally detailed assessment where you think he is "wrong"?
Oh dear. I wonder if that is because Grammar schools might be popular? *innocent face*
Nope, more a reflection on Corbyn.
If you look at the graph, the Tories led during the last parliament, by even larger margins when Dave was rolling out the free schools and promising no more grammar schools.
I love the internal inconsistency there.
You're free to set up a school.
But it cant be a grammar school, oh noooo! Not that 'free' after all, eh?
Because free schools don't even up shafting the poor like grammar schools do.
Free schools, on the evidence we have available benefits the whole area, not just a select few.
And the poor can move to areas where the good schools are, right?
Oh, wait....
That's why the Gover and Morgn we're rolling out free schools to poorer areas.
Though there's no guarantee a new free school will be an outstanding school, the best way to get an outstanding school is still through the ability to pay for the right postcode.
There's nothing shameful about allowing ability rather than ability to pay be the criteria.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
Wrong place - inaccessible to most people in the southern half of the UK, who use Heathrow, no infrastructure or transport connections. As a new build more disruptive than a an existing development. Greater environmental impact. More people lose their homes. Much more expensive all in and also riskier.
On the plus side there would be less noise impact than at Heathrow.
(This happened when the massive Queens Medical Centre opened in Nottingham. It was so large there were not enough cleaners available in the local area, and they initially had to offer free busses for cleaners from other parts of Notingham. Or so local legend goes).
Staffing is a massive issue. Heathrow employs half (probably more) of West London, directly or indirectly. Around the airport there is a whole network of ancillary industry and activity - indeed as someone pointed out earlier, the M4 corridor industries are there largely because of the airport.
The idea that you could simultaneously cancel all these jobs and build thousands of new homes in the space where the jobs were is madness.
Similarly no-one lives in the middle of the Thames Estuary, and the available workforce on the Essex or North Kent coasts wholly inadequate to meet the demand. In practice you'd have to find a way of persuading thousands of people to relocate from west London and find the space and wherewithal to build the required housing and other infrastructure.
Build it up north and the turkeys from down south can take HS2 to the airport, will be as quick as getting to Heathrow , Stanstead et al. They will save on parking and taxis
‘After protecting those now in receipt of EU funding, we will still have billions more to spend on our priorities. We propose that at least £5.5 billion of that be spent on the NHS by 2020, giving it a much-needed £100 million per week cash transfusion, and to use £1.7 billion to abolish VAT on household energy bills.’
Oh dear. I wonder if that is because Grammar schools might be popular? *innocent face*
Nope, more a reflection on Corbyn.
If you look at the graph, the Tories led during the last parliament, by even larger margins when Dave was rolling out the free schools and promising no more grammar schools.
I love the internal inconsistency there.
You're free to set up a school.
But it cant be a grammar school, oh noooo! Not that 'free' after all, eh?
Because free schools don't even up shafting the poor like grammar schools do.
Free schools, on the evidence we have available benefits the whole area, not just a select few.
And the poor can move to areas where the good schools are, right?
Oh, wait....
That's why the Gover and Morgn we're rolling out free schools to poorer areas.
As I posted the other night, policies which help the establishment middle classes way before they help the poor simply don't help the optics. Especially as the end point of helping the poor often never materialises.
The establishment has been kicked in the knackers for taking just this sort of approach. Theresa knows this. Richard N seem's to have picked up on this - to be honest, you don't seem to have....
I think @RichardNabavi is right and globalising Brexiters ( who are vastly over represented on here ) are wrong. May has correctly analysised what Leave was as a cultural event and correctly stated what that means in policy terms. Controlling immigration means you start with a very Hard Brexit then negotiate as much Single Market access as you can to soften it later. But Leave = Immigration Control = Hard Brexit is the basis. And so far that's all May has said. A50 will be invoked, ECA is going, immigration control comes first. But after that May has left everything open. It's signal and noise territory. In the midst of the utter chaos of Brexit stands May's limited but utterly clear analysis.
May is a prime minister of a divided party, with a divided cabinet, and a very small majority.
Yes she is. Her very clear analysis could be superceded by events or prove undeliverable. Or continue to be contested on the grounds Leave didn't mean X. I'm just pointing out May has, imho to her credit, said either exactly what Brexit means or said nothing at all about what Brexit means. She's either been crystal clear or kept maximum flexibility. And the few bits she has been definitive on, A50 + ECA, stem from her analysis of Leave = Immigration.
I happen to think this is the path to a particularly grim, insular and backward looking cultural Suez event which I will fight with more zeal than anything else in my life. But that's neither here now there. May has correctly analysised what Leave meant, told us, and set out a strategy accordingly. It's all hidden in plain sight.
And if membership of the Single Market is incompatible with Brexit, for practical purposes?
Which it is.
We are leaving the EU and therefore the Single Market. There was only one even vaguely plausible route by which we could leave the EU and remain in the Single Market, namely the EEA option (were it to be available to us, which is not a given). However, that option was firmly closed off by the Leave campaign, who made immigration the centrepiece of their case. If they had wanted us to join the EEA, they should have said that was the goal, and accepted that therefore leaving the EU would make no difference to EU immigration. (They would of course have lost if they'd done that). Instead, they won, using control over immigration as the principal advantage of leaving. OK, Dan Hannan might not agree. But what he thinks is as irrelevant as what Nick Clegg thinks - even more so, in fact, since he was a member of the Vote Leave policy committee which deliberately decided that immigration was to be the centrepiece of their campaign.
I've been somwhat critical of our new PM on various points, but on this central point I think she absolutely 'gets it'. Brexit means Brexit, we must have substantial control over immigration , and therefore we will not be 'in' the Single Market under any circumstances. Once you've accepted that, everything becomes much clearer: we are talking about degree of access to the Single Market from the outside. Maximising that, within the political constraints, should be the top priority of the government, and I believe it is.
As for disunity in the government, I don't think this is (yet) as big a problem as some are making out, for one very simple reason: currently it's the boys quarrelling, but the Head Mistress hasn't come down on one side or the other. Her personal authority is (as yet) completely unchallenged. That might change, and it is true that as time goes on it becomes more likely to change, but for now she's 100% in control. That is another reason why delay to triggering Article 50 couldn't go on too long.
Richard, your best contribution to the EU debate for many a long day! Super stuff.
Super - and wrong
I was praising Richard's contribution to the EU debate. Perhaps you'd like to do the same - and give us an equally detailed assessment where you think he is "wrong"?
I have already clearly explained where and why he is wrong
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
No it's been explored to death, even after every competent study agreed it was a dumb non-starter.
That depends on the constraints set on the study. In the long term (50+ years, passenger / freight growth continuing as it has), it is the most sensible, and possibly cheapest, option. Sadly, greater constraints were put on the commission.
I believe that the extra capacity enabled by HR3 will be filled pretty much as soon as it is opened, perhaps moving the bubble of capacity constraints elsewhere (e.g. terminal space, transport). Then we'll be going through this ordeal all over again.
Or, if the point-to-point proponents are to be believed, not.
A third runway will indeed be pretty much full as soon as it opens, which is why the decision has to be for two new runways.
I think three, one at each of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Leave the door open for a fourth at Heathrow. Close down Luton.
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A nuhen retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
That's jus made by Vote Leave.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
Vote leave is not in power.
So it's ok to run an official campaign wherein any number of claims are made for what would happen post an Out vote, and a manifesto produced, and then when sufficient numbers of the public indeed agree with those claims and vote Leave....they are ignored?
Well that would mirror the campaign to take us INTO the Common Market, which told endless lies about "no loss of sovereignty", "this is not a superstate", so there's a rather admirable historic circularity here. Irony, and Closure.
And yet successive UK parliaments signed up to each and every new EU treaty.
That's about as sovereign as it gets, isn't it?
It was revolting lie, from the start, and the Establishment avoided the public's growing wrath about this lie, by promising referendums - and then snatching them away, time and again. In the end, their rancid hubris caught up with them, and the most arrogant, inept europhile of them all, David Cameron, called a full-on in/out vote, entirely expecting to win - and lost.
The Europhiles destroyed the UK's EU membership with decades of mendacity, and denials of democracy. This is inarguable.
That is very unfair. Blair and Brown were far more arrogant and inept Europhiles who were too frit to face the public. Cameron may have misjudged the public mood but at least had the cojones to actually face the public. Once things simmer down and emotions are cool Eurosceptics should thank him for that.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
No it's been explored to death, even after every competent study agreed it was a dumb non-starter.
That depends on the constraints set on the study. In the long term (50+ years, passenger / freight growth continuing as it has), it is the most sensible, and possibly cheapest, option. Sadly, greater constraints were put on the commission.
I believe that the extra capacity enabled by HR3 will be filled pretty much as soon as it is opened, perhaps moving the bubble of capacity constraints elsewhere (e.g. terminal space, transport). Then we'll be going through this ordeal all over again.
Or, if the point-to-point proponents are to be believed, not.
A third runway will indeed be pretty much full as soon as it opens, which is why the decision has to be for two new runways.
So both heathrow options then - a new runway and extending an existing one.
‘After protecting those now in receipt of EU funding, we will still have billions more to spend on our priorities. We propose that at least £5.5 billion of that be spent on the NHS by 2020, giving it a much-needed £100 million per week cash transfusion, and to use £1.7 billion to abolish VAT on household energy bills.’
So we should draw a distinction between the Big Lie that was displayed on posters and the Little Lie that was in small print?
No little lie in small print, when Michael Gove (the only Vote Leave frontman to do so) launched his leadership bid he proposed £100 million per week to the NHS which is exactly what was proposed by Vote Leave in the detail. Of course Gove lost the election and so May wasn't committed to that.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
No it's been explored to death, even after every competent study agreed it was a dumb non-starter.
That depends on the constraints set on the study. In the long term (50+ years, passenger / freight growth continuing as it has), it is the most sensible, and possibly cheapest, option. Sadly, greater constraints were put on the commission.
I believe that the extra capacity enabled by HR3 will be filled pretty much as soon as it is opened, perhaps moving the bubble of capacity constraints elsewhere (e.g. terminal space, transport). Then we'll be going through this ordeal all over again.
Or, if the point-to-point proponents are to be believed, not.
A third runway will indeed be pretty much full as soon as it opens, which is why the decision has to be for two new runways.
I think three, one at each of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Leave the door open for a fourth at Heathrow. Close down Luton.
Who is paying for this? Neither LHR or LGW will build if the other one starts, the figures simply don't add up.
I'd agree with closing down Luton. Keep the airport, mind, just raze the rest and then salt the earth.
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO
I don't think those options have changed. The only questions are: what are the costs of the various elements, and where is the popular support in the UK?'
Clearly the smoothest route would be to join EFTA, get all our trade deals in place with the ROW & then do a Canadian type deal with the EU.
Unfortunately this wasn't on the ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A nuhen retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
That's jus made by Vote Leave.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
Vote leave is not in power.
So it's ok to run an official campaign wherein any number of claims are made for what would happen post an Out vote, and a manifesto produced, and then when sufficient numbers of the public indeed agree with those claims and vote Leave....they are ignored?
Well that would mirror the campaign to take us INTO the Common Market, which told endless lies about "no loss of sovereignty", "this is not a superstate", so there's a rather admirable historic circularity here. Irony, and Closure.
And yet successive UK parliaments signed up to each and every new EU treaty.
That's about as sovereign as it gets, isn't it?
It was revolting lie, from the start, and the Establishment avoided the public's growing wrath about this lie, by promising referendums - and then snatching them away, time and again. In the end, their rancid hubris caught up with them, and the most arrogant, inept europhile of them all, David Cameron, called a full-on in/out vote, entirely expecting to win - and lost.
The Europhiles destroyed the UK's EU membership with decades of mendacity, and denials of democracy. This is inarguable.
Successive governments signed us up and Nige kept on at us that this was the wrong thing to do. He hated the EU, believed it was sovereignty-munching and eventually won an historic victory with the vote result this last June.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
We no longer possess the vision of Victorian industrialists. It's what they would have done. And people would still be marvelling at it a century and a half on...
The Chinese would have it build within 5-7 years.
Our leadership class are too busy fretting that they are being forced out of their expensive junket club.
Its pathetic.
Different world in China. Once spoke to Chinese official re the building of Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital Airport, which is huge.Asked about whether it was difficult to build and the people who lived where it was built. "We told them to move, they did" was all he said.
Just a little easier than in the UK
Dubai is the same, but with even fewer people and more sand. If people are in the way of a new project then find a way to buy them off and relocate them. Sure as hell don't let some random Swampy who lives nowhere near get involved, nor people who moved next door to an airport complain about the noise from it.
What is clear is that the planning process for large infrastructure projects in the U.K. is broken and beholden to the NIMBYs. Also remember that any LHR 'Announcement' represents the start of that process. We still have the judicial reviews, planning process, appeals and public enquiry all to come before a spade hits the ground to build any new runway. Probably add in a challenge in the ECHR too, by people who like the EU and not airports.
DXB's terminal 3, also on the existing airport site, was built in less time than LHR T5's planning enquiry. Think about that for a minute. The rest of the world is laughing (all the way to he bank) at the inability of the UK to just get on with it.
The correct planning process in a developed economy is clearly between the two extremes illustrated, but there's clearly a national interest in getting this project started yesterday.
''One of the points I've repeatedly made here is that we need to think of ways in which our EU friends can claim they have 'won' in the negotiations and that there has been a 'cost' to the UK leaving.''
Us keeping writing a cheque is being widely trailed today, so perhaps that 'cost' is a literal one.
The cheque might be bigger than it is now if we had a bespoke deal that encompassed immigration control, no ECJ, our own trade deals and financial passports. A considerably bigger cheque, perhaps.
I still think it would be sellable to the public, though.
Vote Leave's key campaign pledge was £350m a week for the NHS
Labour Leave's key message was "Wipe the smiles off their faces". Which we did.
(Cam & Ozzy being the face-owners in question)
Cameron and Osborne are multimillionaires who'll be smiling long after the zero rated ESA claimants are further impoverished by the Brexit inflation. I imagine many of the victims of the hare crime spike around referendum day had the smile wiped off their faces though.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
No it's been explored to death, even after every competent study agreed it was a dumb non-starter.
That depends on the constraints set on the study. In the long term (50+ years, passenger / freight growth continuing as it has), it is the most sensible, and possibly cheapest, option. Sadly, greater constraints were put on the commission.
I believe that the extra capacity enabled by HR3 will be filled pretty much as soon as it is opened, perhaps moving the bubble of capacity constraints elsewhere (e.g. terminal space, transport). Then we'll be going through this ordeal all over again.
Or, if the point-to-point proponents are to be believed, not.
A third runway will indeed be pretty much full as soon as it opens, which is why the decision has to be for two new runways.
I think three, one at each of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Leave the door open for a fourth at Heathrow. Close down Luton.
Who is paying for this? Neither LHR or LGW will build if the other one starts, the figures simply don't add up.
I'd agree with closing down Luton. Keep the airport, mind, just raze the rest and then salt the earth.
They have to self fund. If they can't find the money then that's not the taxpayer's problem.
'Yet when I saw Macron six months ago, he said that there were four options for the UK:
EU, EFTA/EEA, Canada, or WTO e ballot paper or proposed by any of the key players.
I've been proposing time limited (say five to seven years) EEA for some time. But "the usual suspects" have been calling this a betrayal.
A nuhen retrospectively turn round and claim that Leave meant anything specific other than exiting the EU.
That's jus made by Vote Leave.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
Vote leave is not in power.
So it's ok to run an official campaign wherein any number of claims are made for what would happen post an Out vote, and a manifesto produced, and then when sufficient numbers of the public indeed agree with those claims and vote Leave....they are ignored?
Well that would mirror the campaign to take us INTO the Common Market, which told endless lies about "no loss of sovereignty", "this is not a superstate", so there's a rather admirable historic circularity here. Irony, and Closure.
And yet successive UK parliaments signed up to each and every new EU treaty.
That's about as sovereign as it gets, isn't it?
It was revolting lie, from the start, and the Establishment avoided the public's growing wrath about this lie, by promising referendums - and then snatching them away, time and again. In the end, their rancid hubris caught up with them, and the most arrogant, inept europhile of them all, David Cameron, called a full-on in/out vote, entirely expecting to win - and lost.
The Europhiles destroyed the UK's EU membership with decades of mendacity, and denials of democracy. This is inarguable.
That is very unfair. Blair and Brown were far more arrogant and inept Europhiles who were too frit to face the public. Cameron may have misjudged the public mood but at least had the cojones to actually face the public. Once things simmer down and emotions are cool Eurosceptics should thank him for that.
Even PB Leavers state how Dave's legacy will be "poisoned" (or similar) by holding the EURef. Of course they should be saying how his legacy will be that of the best PM in history. Cognitive dissonance, much?
"It is the most sensible, possibly cheapest, option".
You're entitled to your own opinion, obviously, but let's not pretend it's anything other than that. The commission's constraints were (in my opinion) pretty sensible. Replacing them with another set to get your preferred answer does not prove anything other than a personal bias.
I believe it will take the best part of a decade to fill up LHR (happy to be corrected). So that's around 2040. If more capacity is needed, let's have that debate in 2030.
A point of order, if I may: I've accepted - and supported - the need for Heathrow expansion since the initial AC report rejected Boris Island. The constraints were pretty sensible; but so would a more forward-looking set of constraints.
But we are where we are, and Heathrow it is.
As for ten years: ISTR that was the commission's belief. However, according to something I linked to last week, traffic growth has exceeded their projections. And construction will not be starting when they stated.
It does not take much excess traffic growth, delays in the start of construction, and delays in construction, for that ten years to become five years or even much less.
Vote Leave's key campaign pledge was £350m a week for the NHS
Labour Leave's key message was "Wipe the smiles off their faces". Which we did.
(Cam & Ozzy being the face-owners in question)
Cameron and Osborne are multimillionaires who'll be smiling long after the zero rated ESA claimants are further impoverished by the Brexit inflation. I imagine many of the victims of the hare crime spike around referendum day had the smile wiped off their faces though.
Would that be the hate crime spike, where this Remainer beat a Leave voter to death?
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
No it's been explored to death, even after every competent study agreed it was a dumb non-starter.
That depends on the constraints set on the study. In the long term (50+ years, passenger / freight growth continuing as it has), it is the most sensible, and possibly cheapest, option. Sadly, greater constraints were put on the commission.
I believe that the extra capacity enabled by HR3 will be filled pretty much as soon as it is opened, perhaps moving the bubble of capacity constraints elsewhere (e.g. terminal space, transport). Then we'll be going through this ordeal all over again.
Or, if the point-to-point proponents are to be believed, not.
A third runway will indeed be pretty much full as soon as it opens, which is why the decision has to be for two new runways.
I think three, one at each of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Leave the door open for a fourth at Heathrow. Close down Luton.
Who is paying for this? Neither LHR or LGW will build if the other one starts, the figures simply don't add up.
I'd agree with closing down Luton. Keep the airport, mind, just raze the rest and then salt the earth.
They have to self fund. If they can't find the money then that's not the taxpayer's problem.
So nothing happens, and the situation worsens. Awesome.
Yup the mandateless PM has lost control and is egregiously unqualified to be PM
@tnewtondunn: On Cabinet's Brexit rows, No10 insists PM "happy for there to be a debate before a decision is reached". But the look is she's lost control.
How long before Osborne returns to "get a grip" ?
I can't think of a single member of the public who wouldn't feel reassured.
Then you must move in very tight circles......61% of Conservatives and 73% of UK voters don't think he's up to the job of PM:
Mr. Topping, no, Cameron's on a lose-lose position. If things turn out badly, he was wrong for holding the vote. If they turn out well, he was wrong to advocate remaining.
The best he can hope for is to have accidentally helped the country to a better future by being totally lacking in judgement regarding both the EU and his own persuasive abilities.
Dunno what was wrong with the Boris Island idea. Build a massive 6 runway, 12 terminal airport on an artificial island in the Thames estuary, no one to complain about noise or pollution because the planes fly over the water. Close Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stanstead for redevelopment to pay for it. Call it not 'Boris Island' but say the Queen Elizabeth the Second international airport or 'London QEII' It would be the largest and busiest airport in the world, served by superfast trains from the centre of London. I don't think this idea has been properly explored.
No it's been explored to death, even after every competent study agreed it was a dumb non-starter.
That depends on the constraints set on the study. In the long term (50+ years, passenger / freight growth continuing as it has), it is the most sensible, and possibly cheapest, option. Sadly, greater constraints were put on the commission.
I believe that the extra capacity enabled by HR3 will be filled pretty much as soon as it is opened, perhaps moving the bubble of capacity constraints elsewhere (e.g. terminal space, transport). Then we'll be going through this ordeal all over again.
Or, if the point-to-point proponents are to be believed, not.
A third runway will indeed be pretty much full as soon as it opens, which is why the decision has to be for two new runways.
I think three, one at each of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Leave the door open for a fourth at Heathrow. Close down Luton.
Who is paying for this? Neither LHR or LGW will build if the other one starts, the figures simply don't add up.
I'd agree with closing down Luton. Keep the airport, mind, just raze the rest and then salt the earth.
They have to self fund. If they can't find the money then that's not the taxpayer's problem.
So nothing happens, and the situation worsens. Awesome.
Heathrow would easily raise the necessary money. Gatwick and Stansted would find it tough going while private money poured into Heathrow (£14bn of it) but once that looks like winding down new money will need to look for new projects.
HR3 is probably the only major infrastructure project that could be financed entirely by the private sector.
I think the sums are £20 per additional passenger to make the investment worthwhile. Only very slightly more than what the current figures are, so not a huge problem.
Vote Leave's key campaign pledge was £350m a week for the NHS
Labour Leave's key message was "Wipe the smiles off their faces". Which we did.
(Cam & Ozzy being the face-owners in question)
Cameron and Osborne are multimillionaires who'll be smiling long after the zero rated ESA claimants are further impoverished by the Brexit inflation. I imagine many of the victims of the hare crime spike around referendum day had the smile wiped off their faces though.
Would that be the hate crime spike, where this Remainer beat a Leave voter to death?
I think we'd better stop the poking the termites' nest that is Remain's last dugout. They don't like it up 'em (or down 'em to continue the analogy).
The underclass have out-voted them despite being told repeatedly that they are racist Neanderthals and should listen to their betters. So let's be sympathetic and say soothing words until their bile dissipates.
We can vote out the people who make the decisions now, so let's be gentle.
Comments
But their reaction since the vote has been little short of extraordinary; as you say, May gets what is needed. And she has put three out and out Leavers in control of our leaving. And our PBLeaverss are amazed by it. But who on earth did they think would get the leaving gig post an Out vote - Anna Soubry?
We need to resolve this and know one way or another what is happening so businesses can plan for the future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_International_Airport
It is also worth considering the nearby London Gateway, a project that is fairly similar (on a smaller, bust still large scale) to Boris Island. Planning given in 2008, with construction starting in 2010 and the first phase accepting ships in 2013.
We can do it. Perhaps we should.
On the plus side there would be less noise impact than at Heathrow.
If anything Brexit is likely to be softer than what Vote Leave promised. It can't be any harder as they promised hard Brexit.
Just a little easier than in the UK
Labour used to lead the Tories on education. Not any more https://t.co/dmoYxJTDg2 https://t.co/9kLuJmOgKH
I think Richard, like Theresa, gets it.
On the plus side, if Heathrow was closed you have a massive area of land available for redevelopment. Developers are salivating over Old Oak Common; they'd love Heathrow.
A negative few people think about would be staffing. From memory, around 100,000 people are employed locally by Heathrow or surrounding air-related developments, with most of those on site. Getting staff for Boris Island might be an issue.
(This happened when the massive Queens Medical Centre opened in Nottingham. It was so large there were not enough cleaners available in the local area, and they initially had to offer free busses for cleaners from other parts of Notingham. Or so local legend goes).
Clinton 46 .. Trump 41
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/poll-41-percent-of-voters-say-the-election-could-be-stolen-from-trump-229871
So yes though if we go on what the Leave campaign said we have to not have any contributions. Which is hard or soft Brexit?
If you look at the graph, the Tories led during the last parliament, by even larger margins when Dave was rolling out the free schools and promising no more grammar schools.
The idea that you could simultaneously cancel all these jobs and build thousands of new homes in the space where the jobs were is madness.
Similarly no-one lives in the middle of the Thames Estuary, and the available workforce on the Essex or North Kent coasts wholly inadequate to meet the demand. In practice you'd have to find a way of persuading thousands of people to relocate from west London and find the space and wherewithal to build the required housing and other infrastructure.
You're free to set up a school.
But it cant be a grammar school, oh noooo! Not that 'free' after all, eh?
Of course the government could disregard what was claimed and go for a Brexit in name only but they're not going to do so. To claim now that Leave didn't define anything is totally disingenuous.
Clinton 70 .. Trump 17
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/301282-poll-clinton-leads-trump-by-50-points-among-latinos
Free schools, on the evidence we have available benefits the whole area, not just a select few.
https://twitter.com/michaelpdeacon/status/747000584226607104
(Cam & Ozzy being the face-owners in question)
Here is Vote Leave promising to maintain the grants the EU funds from the £350m and spend some of what is left over on "our priorities like the NHS". They never said all £350m was destined to the NHS : http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/leave_ministers_commit_to_maintain_eu_funding.html
https://twitter.com/michaelpdeacon/status/747000584226607104
£100 million per week not £350 million per week. http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/leave_ministers_commit_to_maintain_eu_funding.html
http://thehill.com/opinion/juan-williams/301250-juan-williams-women-will-doom-trump
Oh, wait....
You're entitled to your own opinion, obviously, but let's not pretend it's anything other than that. The commission's constraints were (in my opinion) pretty sensible. Replacing them with another set to get your preferred answer does not prove anything other than a personal bias.
I believe it will take the best part of a decade to fill up LHR (happy to be corrected). So that's around 2040. If more capacity is needed, let's have that debate in 2030.
See ScottP's post above.
That's about as sovereign as it gets, isn't it?
Either way the £350m was still spent a fraction of the times over than Ed Miliband's mansion tax at least.
There's nothing shameful about allowing ability rather than ability to pay be the criteria.
You also openly said on here you pushed the £350m pledge through letterboxes knowing full well it was a lie.
You should hang your head in shame.
The establishment has been kicked in the knackers for taking just this sort of approach. Theresa knows this. Richard N seem's to have picked up on this - to be honest, you don't seem to have....
I happen to think this is the path to a particularly grim, insular and backward looking cultural Suez event which I will fight with more zeal than anything else in my life. But that's neither here now there. May has correctly analysised what Leave meant, told us, and set out a strategy accordingly. It's all hidden in plain sight.
Clinton 43 .. Trump 41
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/white_house_watch_oct17
I'd agree with closing down Luton. Keep the airport, mind, just raze the rest and then salt the earth.
Sovereignty & democracy in a nutshell.
Clinton 38 .. Trump 45
http://winwithjmc.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Fleming-Executive-Summary-Poll-3-RELEASE.pdf
What is clear is that the planning process for large infrastructure projects in the U.K. is broken and beholden to the NIMBYs. Also remember that any LHR 'Announcement' represents the start of that process. We still have the judicial reviews, planning process, appeals and public enquiry all to come before a spade hits the ground to build any new runway. Probably add in a challenge in the ECHR too, by people who like the EU and not airports.
DXB's terminal 3, also on the existing airport site, was built in less time than LHR T5's planning enquiry. Think about that for a minute. The rest of the world is laughing (all the way to he bank) at the inability of the UK to just get on with it.
The correct planning process in a developed economy is clearly between the two extremes illustrated, but there's clearly a national interest in getting this project started yesterday.
Us keeping writing a cheque is being widely trailed today, so perhaps that 'cost' is a literal one.
The cheque might be bigger than it is now if we had a bespoke deal that encompassed immigration control, no ECJ, our own trade deals and financial passports. A considerably bigger cheque, perhaps.
I still think it would be sellable to the public, though.
But we are where we are, and Heathrow it is.
As for ten years: ISTR that was the commission's belief. However, according to something I linked to last week, traffic growth has exceeded their projections. And construction will not be starting when they stated.
It does not take much excess traffic growth, delays in the start of construction, and delays in construction, for that ten years to become five years or even much less.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/more-democrat-leaning-miami-cubans-latinos-could-help-clinton-win-n666046
And QED.
The best he can hope for is to have accidentally helped the country to a better future by being totally lacking in judgement regarding both the EU and his own persuasive abilities.
HR3 is probably the only major infrastructure project that could be financed entirely by the private sector.
I think the sums are £20 per additional passenger to make the investment worthwhile. Only very slightly more than what the current figures are, so not a huge problem.
So a druggie ODs and the Mail manage to spin it as an EU-support murder. Clever if a touch unethical.
The underclass have out-voted them despite being told repeatedly that they are racist Neanderthals and should listen to their betters. So let's be sympathetic and say soothing words until their bile dissipates.
We can vote out the people who make the decisions now, so let's be gentle.