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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Paul Nuttall’s doing the right thing by seeking to join Carsew
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Paul Nuttall’s doing the right thing by seeking to join Carsewell in the Commons at the first opportunity
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Being a 'member' of it means you both have a chance to vote upon, and influence, those rules, and that you are treated with equivalence and non-discrimination in trading with any other part of it, if you're in it. In theory at least: it works to some extent, but not perfectly by any means.
Not being a member of it means you have to comply with the relevant rules to sell into it, most obviously in goods, but you may also be at a competitive disadvantage in providing services as you will have to clear extra regulatory and non-tariff hurdles, including bureaucracy around staffing, local approvals and certification. And in any dispute with the EU on fairness you risk being ruled against by the ECJ. This is why many non-EU businesses have found they need to set up a subsidiary within the EU such that this is avoided. Barriers to direct trade from the non-EU country can be mitigated through a general free trade agreement with the EU on goods and services, and Canada got rather a good deal, hence the talk about 'access', but, you won't have a say in the rules in any event.
(1) The EU can (and has) argued that an awful lot of things are barriers to completing the single market: social and employment laws, professional standards, weights and measures, national currencies, taxes, rights, immigration controls. And those harmonisations have then created a driver for further integration: for example, at the point of leaving, single markets on energy, transport, digital and capital markets were planned. For the Eurozone there was a desire to go even further - with banking, social and fiscal union all on the table.
(2) These single market integrations have been accompanied with the EU adding very visible symbols of statehood to itself - the passports, the driver licences, the number plates, the big billboards with the EU flags in the fields etc. – not to mention the tone, rhetoric (and reality) of anthems, foreign ministers, “Presidents”, and a diplomatic and foreign service.
(3) In conjunction with that the ECJ has felt increasingly comfortable ruling on (what most people would consider) non “single market” issues: human rights, social and employment matters, and areas of crime and justice. And a number of those rulings –particularly with such cases as “votes for prisoners” - have had a high profile in the UK.
(4) A lot of this crossed a line for us in the UK and pissed us off. We didn’t much care for aspects of what had happened so far, felt increasingly constrained by the existing set-up ‘as is’ and weren’t clear where exactly we’d end up. In theory, the EU could have argued anything was a barrier to the single market- perhaps even criminal laws, income taxes, healthcare systems, and argued for a common legal jurisdiction – and the scope of ECJ jurisdiction may have spread even without new treaties.
(6) It felt unbalanced anyway. And this struck at the British sense of fair play. The level of diligence applied to EU regulations and standards was often noticeably lower to Britons visiting or working in countries like Hungary, Slovakia, and even some of the PIGS nations compared to the UK. Further, it felt the UK was out of balance on two of the freedoms: services and people. The UK has for years tried to 'complete' the single market in services -largely to its advantage as we have a significant services surplus – but has failed to do so. With the notable exception of financial passporting. In tandem with that the UK has been historically accommodating with free movement of people – partly a victim of its own success, but it’s had huge political effects here - and the EU was very slow to respond on both.
(7) The EU and UK political cultures were so far apart that both were unable to reconcile the disparity: the EU thinking the UK had been given quite enough special favours as it was and was insufficiently committed to the European project overall; that you don’t get the economics without the politics. The UK Government viewing the single market as an economic tool in the national interest – and also feeling EU membership helped the UK to leverage its political influence – but also increasingly frustrated at the EU’s inflexibility and inability to recognise that most Britons were ultimately uncomfortable with its vision.
(8) We had other options open to us: with less than half of our trade going to the EU “as-is”, the forecast of the non-EU global economy to be 85% in future, our own currency, our speaking of the global language, our attractive legal system, and having political ties worldwide it felt like the consequences of leaving were a long way from being catastrophic.
Unfortunately I see no sign this has been recognised by the EU yet, as they still fail to understand the vote, thinking we’re both ungrateful and a bit nasty, so I think a very basic exit deal is likely.
We are likely to take an economic hit in the short-medium term (over where we’d have otherwise been) but in the longer term as the regional and global economies of both the UK and the EU adjust to the new political realities I don’t expect very much difference at all.
Would this include the party renowned for its use of spurious bar charts based on ficticious polling, that currently stands at 16/1 best odds in the Constituency polls?
Just as we are a 'small c' conservative country we are an unatural bedfellow with our European friends. It has always been an unhappy union. Much better to be a good friend nextdoor than a miserable prisoner within.
Our lack of fit may not be nearly so obvious for many of the other potential leavers though. For them the challenges are primarily Euro / economic incompatibility driven whereas our disconnect was political / legal / cultural (ie more profound).
UKIP would greatly benefit from an elected MP as party leader, this was always Farage’s Achilles heel imho and a source of much amusement by many. However, brave as this move by Nuttall may be, on this occasion I don’t think he stands a chance of winning.
I think Germany is a natural bedfellow for the UK. It is conservative with an austerity agenda very similar to the UK and different from the original Social Democrat flavour of the EU, particularly France. It will miss us. France and Germany are going to have to fight it out alone.
It will be interesting to see whether Germany can retain its European hegemony under Schauble. It has benefited from a very competitive exchange rate at the great cost to the Southern countries, but is unwilling to cross subsidise them in return - see treatment of Greece.
There are going to be great strains on this relationship, particularly in the absence of the Euro 10billion budget contribution from the UK.
Every day in every way they show why we were right to get out.
Here's why.
If the Tories win Copeland from 6.5% behind at the general election, it would be the best government by-election performance since well before WWII. If they win Stoke Central, where they were third and more than 17% behind at the GE, in a seat they haven't won since 1900 (including predecessors) apart from in the mother of all landslides in 1931, it would perhaps be the most extraordinary by-election result ever.
Superb posts.
A few things I disagree with (obvs), which doesn't detract from the posts (again, obvs).
I think someone has mentioned ECHR/ECJ. I think if you look at it, subsidiarity together with NCAs illustrate, when reading the actual directives, that the EU was actually quite keen to devolve more power than people imagine. The lack of balance you mention also illustrates that as we know the UK was keen to goldplate much of the EU regulatory regime, whereas others perhaps were not as keen; likewise deciding against invoking an emergency brake for the A8.
In short, I think that you have ascribed more damage done to us by the EU than we have done to ourselves, whereas the bogeymen have generally been homegrown. Further, as you very eloquently explain in your first post, the single market has, via its efficiency and standardisation, delivered real benefit to this country which, again as you rightly identify, will mean a significant economic shock when we leave, plus no input into future regulations which we will have to follow. Nor do I think the proportion of trade we do with the EU will lessen very much very quickly.
But still an excellent post. Haven't you got any work to do??
If he was previously planning to stand in Leigh, then switching his efforts to Stoke have to make sense.
Will he win? Second with an increased vote share is my best guess.
Cheers for your kind words though!
Darwin realised that when (especially bird) populations get divided in some way the separated parts will continue to evolve in their own ways until at some point they are no longer physically capable of reproducing with each other, and have in fact become separate species. A bullfinch can screw a chaffinch but they can't make baby finches. Horses and donkeys are half way there - able only to produce sterile mules together.
Being physically safe in our island and looking to the sea and our navy to drive a global trading mindset, we have been pulling away from continental Europe for centuries. 'Fog in channel'. Our legal, electoral, political and cultural (LEPC) systems have evolved along their own path. We are a meme Galapagos. The Alps and the Catholic/Protestant divide on the continent produce some political mules but by and large continental Europe shares enough common LEPC DNA to make cohabitation and evolution viable. This is no longer true for the UK. Joining the EU (strictly speaking its predecessors) 40 years ago was an attempt to reharmonise a diverging LEPC trajectory. But forces of nature do their own thing. We've speciated and don't share enough EU DNA any more (and probably haven't for quite some time).
The UK is a fine stallion and we should stop pretending that shacking up with donkeys is a good thing any more. Let's find some nice mares instead.
Mr. Rog, won't the resurgent Lib Dems benefit from any anti-Conservative voting?
I also think that the demographics in this Stoke seat put a lid on the UKIP vote share.
Now, in a tight four-way contest, UKIP could slip through the middle. But I don't think this is going to be a tight four-way contest. I think the LibDems are going to be too busy with council elections and Copeland, and will likely end up doing little better than last time. Labour with an increased vote share would be my guess.
When we are all in our retirements, we will look back fondly on 2017 as the year we all became aware that the lib dems came second in the seat of Stoke Central in the 2005 and 2010 general elections.
Would it work for them without the money?
Isn't the whole problem "the money"?
Germany - benefits from selling its products across the EU (including the Euro exchange rate).
France - CAP and other advantages.
Smaller countries (inc Ireland) - being part of something bigger and getting money out of it.
But the UK? Gold-plated regulations. No true market in services. Imports higher than exports. Very significant financial contributions. For what? Sure, some advantages, but not nearly enough.
In the end, I think it always comes down to "the money".
Perish the thought.
The last case was brought in the ECJ.
It was not brought to the ECJ because of the incorporation of the EHCR.
I don't have time to write a fuller answer.
The rest of the EU has seen this very clearly and it explains in large part the distaste with which they now regard Britain. So yes, they see Britain as ungrateful and nasty. Basically, they're right.
You'd be right to say it was probably the difference between winning and losing.
Stoke wins on every count - better history, fewer votes needed to win, can flood seat with activists, Tory/UKIP fighting each other hard.
While I expect a comfortable Labour hold, I don't get the suggestion that Copeland is somehow better for the LDs than Stoke. Neither good, but you could work on Stoke.
In the end I think the costs appeared to outweigh the benefits to enough people to get Leave over the line.
But still, it is strange to hear a Tory PM announce our departure from a single market that the Tories did so much to promote. Had we had the market without the political appendages we'd still be in.
So I disagree with you. In the end the politics trumped the money. The EU's political desire to use FoM to erase national boundaries met Britain's refusal to have its national boundaries erased.
BTW: excellent posts from @CasinoRoyale.
The Tories need to forget Stoke, which they've no chance of winning, and give Copeland everything they've got.
And I view with even more distaste the sanctimoniousness with which they now criticize other countries for wishing to impose controls on who comes into their country in the same way as the Germans did and with even more distaste the way they have paraded their moral conscience over letting in Syrian refugees while forgetting the moral obligations they owed their near neighbours.
There is nothing morally wrong with seeking to control who is allowed to move into a country.
Re a single market in services. The problem is - and has always been - that single markets require that national governments lose the power to regulate. In the case of physical products, this is only rarely an issue (fire extinguisher marking synchronisation notwithstanding), but in the case of services, it's much harder.
There is a complex network of systems and local laws around - for example - real estate transactions. There is the role of the solicitor in conveyencing, the role of the estate agent, the differences in taxation systems, the requirements for qualifications (or otherwise). Etc. etc. etc.
All those things make it very hard for - say - Foxtons to compete in the French Immoblier market.
It is, of course, quite possible to standardise all these laws across all the countries, so as to enable Foxtons to compete in France, etc. But attempting to do that is incredibly complex: and Foxtons (and UK estate agents) would fight tooth and nail themselves against changes that might make the UK market more competitive. In other words, the power of the vested interest wins.
The only way way to get around this is to denude countries of even more sovereignty. I don't think that's going to be an easy sale. Do you?
https://twitter.com/Brexit/status/821660014150565889
There is nothing more satisfying than seeing someone on a straw high horse knocked off by reality.
I have seen only one comment on my fb feed about yesterday's speech. From a Barrister who studied with me at Ox. It wasn't even critical. Just an observation.
You fundamentally misunderstand the position and particularly the steel of the people of this country. If anything, banks on manoeuvres will firm up opposition to Europe and metropolitan liberalism. Brexit means Brexit.
Whether Foxtons or Leggett Immobilier are fans of the commercial consequences, again that is also germane to the issue. Punters, meanwhile, would win out.
https://twitter.com/europeelects/status/821745368530612226
'Counsel asks "with so many bets isn't it possible that bookmakers sometimes just get the odds wrong?"
Witness replies "in principle" '
Is this a Scottish Law case? Would be interesting hearing DavidL's input if so....
And yet all of this was ignored by those who pushed FoM as some sort of holy grail, as if people and what they felt about their communities did not matter. You have rightly said that borders may not make sense when you are talking about the border between Belgium and France and people hopping across the two. But people's views about this depend on where they are and how they see themselves and their country. And the EU ignored all of this.
There is something chilling about the way they did so while at the same time chanting about these 4 freedoms when in fact for the reasons you and I have enumerated (and others) the reality was much messier. Principles are fine but pragmatism in their application and a realization that you have to come to terms with the idiosyncracies of how people live their lives are more important than trying to iron all of this out in the name of some uniform rationality.
I have news for you: almost everyone, not excluding immigrants and the offspring of immigrants, wants immigration controlled. It even made it onto the Edstone. If the referendum got hijacked and turned into a referendum on that point, more fool Cameron for holding it. He was an epic twat, and by your own logic where the faults of the nastiest possible Leaver are ascribed to all Leavers, that would appear to make you an epic twat too.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/obama-polling-trends/
Oh dear.
If you refuse consistently to listen to people don't be surprised if, eventually, they say it by screaming at you and saying it in a way that you don't like and may revolt you.