Everything now hinges on Therea's speech in Florence. She needs to set out her vision as EEA Swiss Model Lite Plus Plus (or whatver it is) - i.e. the very antithesis of the Ultra Hard Brexit Boris has set his store by. Boris must be utterly humiliated and the rest of his Hard Leave cabal ground into the dust. I want to hear screams of 'Treachery' when Theresa makes her speech. I want to see Leavers attack and vilify her in the same way they did to Heath and Cameron. I want to see Farage fume. Only by doing this can Theresa hope to survive.
Yes a massive capitulation to the EU's demands is surely a cracking strategy at this point in the negotiations...
On topic. This is just one more example amongst many of why Boris should never get near the PM position. He may be very bright in an intellectual way but he lacks basic common sense and, I suspect, a moral compass.
Right now we are about as rich, per person, as France. With the right economic reforms we could be perhaps as rich as Germany. After Brexit, our long-term living standards are likely to trend towards Italy’s. Italy is a fine country, but it’s not what I want Britain to be – especially without the weather.
Dan Hannan's article on the same site sums up brilliantly why so many previously-Remain backers like myself switched last year to push Leave over the line.
In 2015, David Cameron announced that he was looking for a new deal with the EU, and that there would be a renegotiation followed by a membership referendum. Had the renegotiation resulted in any significant repatriation of power, he would have won the referendum. All he needed was to come back with some competence returned, and to say, “Look, I have set the precedent. Powers can pass downwards as well as upwards. We won’t be drawn into a United States of Europe.”
In the event, though, he came away with empty hands. Perhaps he asked for the wrong things, or perhaps the other leaders never took the threat of a “Leave” vote seriously. Whatever the explanation, the effect on British public opinion was immediate. “If that is how Brussels treats its second largest financial contributor before we vote,” people said, “how will it treat us if we vote to stay?”
Someone yesterday was posting that ‘he’d got a good deal for the City.
Oh, er.......
He did. Plus on no ever closer union.
Hannan is a twat. A patronising one at that because his appeal lies in him thinking that no one bar him understands what he is talking about. He is talking bollocks.
I would suggest that description is far more accurate when applied to yourself.
Labour said they would spend something like an extra £48bn a year just in current spending, plus unspecified countless billions on 'investment', plus further dozens or hundreds of billions of nationalisations, plus Corbyn's off-the-cuff writing off of £100bn of student loans, plus a series of measures guaranteed to reduce economic activity, There were freebies for everyone - pensioners, students, public sector workers - except, oddly enough, the poorest.. And. most fantastically of all, all this was supposed to be delivered without increasing taxes on anyone earning less than £85K. That combination was the biggest fantasy any major party has put forward in modern times, which is saying quite a lot.
Or, as Vince Cable put it, rather more succinctly, Labour believe that 2 + 2 = 7
Hang on it was the people that sold us into the EU in the first place that said it was just a common market and no need to worry about anything else.
Now we're trying to leave they are telling us that it's almost impossible for millions of reasons other than the thing we agreed to join.
Just as well we're leaving now as it would be even more "impossible" in a decade.
Thats nice. Demonstrates my point exactly - answer the various "we can't" and "that's impossible" questions with rhetoric.
We either stay in the single market or we trade via the WTO. The fantasy special deal for the UK - even if there is one - will take years to agree and we have just months. And the physical practicalities of WTO can't be done in months either - HMRC's new computer system going live 6 weeks before we leave can cope with just 60% of transactions and they say they'd need 5 years for a bigger one plus the physical infrastructure. And thats ignoring the elephant in the room which is the intra-Irish border. We can't leave the single market and maintain an open border. But we have to maintain an open border.
So give me some specific answers to the specific problems. Because at the moment brexit has turned into fantasy island bullshit. And thats me speaking as someone who voted to leave. Because the Norway option - join EFTA, stay in the EEA - is the obvious solution.
Er...it's not my ridiculous deadline of 2 years to leave that makes this impossible, it's the deadline of your beloved EU.
You know the organisation that idiots like you signed us up for against the wishes of the MAJORITY of the country. Now the people have decided you are bleating about the difficult situation that you helped create.
Leavers like you have created this catastrophe.
Yeah nothing to do with the people who signed us into an organisation that the British people don't want that is almost impossible to get out of.
It's the leavers that are sorting out your crappy mess, which you now have the cheek to gloat about.
Hang on it was the people that sold us into the EU in the first place that said it was just a common market and no need to worry about anything else.
Now we're trying to leave they are telling us that it's almost impossible for millions of reasons other than the thing we agreed to join.
Just as well we're leaving now as it would be even more "impossible" in a decade.
Thats nice. Demonstrates my point exactly - answer the various "we can't" and "that's impossible" questions with rhetoric.
We either stay in the single market or we trade via the WTO. The fantasy special deal for the UK - even if there is one - will take years to agree and we have just months. And the physical practicalities of WTO can't be done in months either - HMRC's new computer system going live 6 weeks before we leave can cope with just 60% of transactions and they say they'd need 5 years for a bigger one plus the physical infrastructure. And thats ignoring the elephant in the room which is the intra-Irish border. We can't leave the single market and maintain an open border. But we have to maintain an open border.
So give me some specific answers to the specific problems. Because at the moment brexit has turned into fantasy island bullshit. And thats me speaking as someone who voted to leave. Because the Norway option - join EFTA, stay in the EEA - is the obvious solution.
You voted Leave???!!!
Right that's it - I'm no longer joining the new party you're going to form. Sorry.
Hang on it was the people that sold us into the EU in the first place that said it was just a common market and no need to worry about anything else.
Now we're trying to leave they are telling us that it's almost impossible for millions of reasons other than the thing we agreed to join.
Just as well we're leaving now as it would be even more "impossible" in a decade.
Thats nice. Demonstrates my point exactly - answer the various "we can't" and "that's impossible" questions with rhetoric.
We either stay in the single market or we trade via the WTO. The fantasy special deal for the UK - even if there is one - will take years to agree and we have just months. And the physical practicalities of WTO can't be done in months either - HMRC's new computer system going live 6 weeks before we leave can cope with just 60% of transactions and they say they'd need 5 years for a bigger one plus the physical infrastructure. And thats ignoring the elephant in the room which is the intra-Irish border. We can't leave the single market and maintain an open border. But we have to maintain an open border.
So give me some specific answers to the specific problems. Because at the moment brexit has turned into fantasy island bullshit. And thats me speaking as someone who voted to leave. Because the Norway option - join EFTA, stay in the EEA - is the obvious solution.
Er...it's not my ridiculous deadline of 2 years to leave that makes this impossible, it's the deadline of your beloved EU.
You know the organisation that idiots like you signed us up for against the wishes of the MAJORITY of the country. Now the people have decided you are bleating about the difficult situation that you helped create.
Leavers like you have created this catastrophe.
Yeah nothing to do with the people who signed us into an organisation that the British people don't want that is almost impossible to get out of.
It's the leavers that are sorting out your crappy mess, which you now have the cheek to gloat about.
Absolutely right.
Surely you jest? We can just sign on the dotted line with EFTA and Bob's your uncle - we can tell the EU27 to go whistle.
Surely you jest? We can just sign on the dotted line with EFTA and Bob's your uncle - we can tell the EU27 to go whistle.
Indeed we can. So long as they want us. Glad to see you agree now. Of course the problem is that our current leadership have decided against that option because of the single issue of freedom of movement. I think they are wrong and would follow Rochdale Pioneers Brexit very happily but I doubt we will now get the opportunity under May.
None of which changes the basic legal position as I have already set out. Nor does it alter CopperSulphate's correct assertion that we are where we are now because of the Eurofanatics like you who tried to force us down a road the majority of the public were not wiling to travel.
Hang on it was the people that sold us into the EU in the first place that said it was just a common market and no need to worry about anything else.
Now we're trying to leave they are telling us that it's almost impossible for millions of reasons other than the thing we agreed to join.
Just as well we're leaving now as it would be even more "impossible" in a decade.
Thats nice. Demonstrates my point exactly - answer the various "we can't" and "that's impossible" questions with rhetoric.
We either stay in the single market or we trade via the WTO. The fantasy special deal for the UK - even if there is one - will take years to agree and we have just months. And the physical practicalities of WTO can't be done in months either - HMRC's new computer system going live 6 weeks before we leave can cope with just 60% of transactions and they say they'd need 5 years for a bigger one plus the physical infrastructure. And thats ignoring the elephant in the room which is the intra-Irish border. We can't leave the single market and maintain an open border. But we have to maintain an open border.
So give me some specific answers to the specific problems. Because at the moment brexit has turned into fantasy island bullshit. And thats me speaking as someone who voted to leave. Because the Norway option - join EFTA, stay in the EEA - is the obvious solution.
Er...it's not my ridiculous deadline of 2 years to leave that makes this impossible, it's the deadline of your beloved EU.
You know the organisation that idiots like you signed us up for against the wishes of the MAJORITY of the country. Now the people have decided you are bleating about the difficult situation that you helped create.
Leavers like you have created this catastrophe.
Yeah nothing to do with the people who signed us into an organisation that the British people don't want that is almost impossible to get out of.
It's the leavers that are sorting out your crappy mess, which you now have the cheek to gloat about.
Absolutely right.
Surely you jest? We can just sign on the dotted line with EFTA and Bob's your uncle - we can tell the EU27 to go whistle.
You lot signed us up to this project that the MAJORITY of the country didn't want, including the ludicrous 2 year deadline and now you're complaining it's painful to get out of. You're also making it as hard as possible to make the best of a bad situation.
And you can't even comprehend why you should take some of the blame.
On a merrier note, Retail Sales rose by 1% in August, or 1.2% on the quarter.
Is this before or after inflation?
On a different point, I suspect it was in 1642 that the English were are obsessed by Sovereignty as they are to-day.
I don't think that was counted as a success.
I would suggest it was a massive success since it gave rise to the Parliamentary democracy we enjoy today as opposed to the unaccountable whims of a ruler appointed by God.
Dan Hannan's article on the same site sums up brilliantly why so many previously-Remain backers like myself switched last year to push Leave over the line.
In 2015, David Cameron announced that he was looking for a new deal with the EU, and that there would be a renegotiation followed by a membership referendum. Had the renegotiation resulted in any significant repatriation of power, he would have won the referendum. All he needed was to come back with some competence returned, and to say, “Look, I have set the precedent. Powers can pass downwards as well as upwards. We won’t be drawn into a United States of Europe.”
In the event, though, he came away with empty hands. Perhaps he asked for the wrong things, or perhaps the other leaders never took the threat of a “Leave” vote seriously. Whatever the explanation, the effect on British public opinion was immediate. “If that is how Brussels treats its second largest financial contributor before we vote,” people said, “how will it treat us if we vote to stay?”
Someone yesterday was posting that ‘he’d got a good deal for the City.
Oh, er.......
He did. Plus on no ever closer union.
Hannan is a twat. A patronising one at that because his appeal lies in him thinking that no one bar him understands what he is talking about. He is talking bollocks.
I always felt the so-called "emergency brake" was a terrrible piece of branding.
Instead of presenting it as a repatriation of powers (therefore demonstrating an opt-out of ever closer union, rather than muttering platitudes about it), presenting it as an emergency brake demonstrated
1) Immigration was out of control (you use an 'emergency' brake as a last resort, you only use it when something has gone badly wrong)
2) the use of the 'brake' analogy demostrated the temporary nature of the fix, it would be one foot on the brake then back on the gas soon after
3) Presenting it as a brake on benefits, not immigration, heavily implied that there could be no brake on immigration, further demonstrating the UK's impotence. Not to mention the requirement for EU approval for the UK to pull the brake in the first place.
It's why 'take back control' was such a powerful message. Time and time again the EU demonsrtated that neither the British citizen nor the British government was in control. For many people, this made leave the default option.
On a merrier note, Retail Sales rose by 1% in August, or 1.2% on the quarter.
Is this before or after inflation?
On a different point, I suspect it was in 1642 that the English were are obsessed by Sovereignty as they are to-day.
I don't think that was counted as a success.
I would suggest it was a massive success since it gave rise to the Parliamentary democracy we enjoy today as opposed to the unaccountable whims of a ruler appointed by God.
Rather a lot of collateral damage in the meantime, though.
On a merrier note, Retail Sales rose by 1% in August, or 1.2% on the quarter.
Is this before or after inflation?
On a different point, I suspect it was in 1642 that the English were are obsessed by Sovereignty as they are to-day.
I don't think that was counted as a success.
I would suggest it was a massive success since it gave rise to the Parliamentary democracy we enjoy today as opposed to the unaccountable whims of a ruler appointed by God.
I thought you ended it by inviting the King back, and establishing a fudge called the "Sovereign in Parliament."
That was not the IFS assessment. CCHQ, we were told, was surprised by the lack of free owls in Labour's manifesto. Is the new spin that Labour lied and bribed its way to within a whisker of Number 10, in the belief that by the time of the next election, the details will have been forgotten? I can see it is tempting for CCHQ to denigrate Labour but surely the bigger risk is they end up fooling themselves.
Labour said they would spend something like an extra £48bn a year just in current spending, plus unspecified countless billions on 'investment', plus further dozens or hundreds of billions of nationalisations, plus Corbyn's off-the-cuff writing off of £100bn of student loans, plus a series of measures guaranteed to reduce economic activity, There were freebies for everyone - pensioners, students, public sector workers - except, oddly enough, the poorest.. And. most fantastically of all, all this was supposed to be delivered without increasing taxes on anyone earning less than £85K.
That combination was the biggest fantasy any major party has put forward in modern times, which is saying quite a lot.
Lots of things become possible with a land value tax.
We've reached the end game after ~35 years of engineering the economy to drain wealth from non-property owners and not-yet property owners and handing it to nimbys, land hoarders and "NO DSS" BTL landlords.
Think of it as a kind of pain-free equity release for the ~75% of voters who aren't the ~25% tory client vote.
It'll be wildly popular, even the Daily Mail will support it.
That was not the IFS assessment. CCHQ, we were told, was surprised by the lack of free owls in Labour's manifesto. Is the new spin that Labour lied and bribed its way to within a whisker of Number 10, in the belief that by the time of the next election, the details will have been forgotten? I can see it is tempting for CCHQ to denigrate Labour but surely the bigger risk is they end up fooling themselves.
Labour said they would spend something like an extra £48bn a year just in current spending, plus unspecified countless billions on 'investment', plus further dozens or hundreds of billions of nationalisations, plus Corbyn's off-the-cuff writing off of £100bn of student loans, plus a series of measures guaranteed to reduce economic activity, There were freebies for everyone - pensioners, students, public sector workers - except, oddly enough, the poorest.. And. most fantastically of all, all this was supposed to be delivered without increasing taxes on anyone earning less than £85K.
That combination was the biggest fantasy any major party has put forward in modern times, which is saying quite a lot.
Lots of things become possible with a land value tax.
We've reached the end game after ~35 years of engineering the economy to drain wealth from non-property owners and not-yet property owners and handing it to nimbys, land hoarders and "NO DSS" BTL landlords.
Think of it as a kind of pain-free equity release for the ~75% of voters who aren't the ~25% tory client vote.
It'll be wildly popular, even the Daily Mail will support it.
Dunno. The Liberals have been on about LVT for about hundred years.
Lots of things become possible with a land value tax.
We've reached the end game after ~35 years of engineering the economy to drain wealth from non-property owners and not-yet property owners and handing it to nimbys, land hoarders and "NO DSS" BTL landlords.
Think of it as a kind of pain-free equity release for the ~75% of voters who aren't the ~25% tory client vote.
Ah yes, that wonderful tax which extracts money from nominal capital values, on the heroic assumption that the extraction of that money has no impact on the nominal capital values.
On a merrier note, Retail Sales rose by 1% in August, or 1.2% on the quarter.
Is this before or after inflation?
On a different point, I suspect it was in 1642 that the English were are obsessed by Sovereignty as they are to-day.
I don't think that was counted as a success.
No it was a big success long term. We limited the power of the monarch (beheading has that effect) for good, and paved the way for Parliamentary democracy, and going out into the world while the continent squabbled away.
Granted there was fallout and many died along the way, not least in Ireland (I assume you are Irish or living there?) which is to be regretted, but the alternative was to submit to a continental style absolutist regime, under a (to the English because Charles 1 was actually Scottish by birth) foreign ruler. Instead of that they rolled the constitutional dice.
That was not the IFS assessment. CCHQ, we were told, was surprised by the lack of free owls in Labour's manifesto. Is the new spin that Labour lied and bribed its way to within a whisker of Number 10, in the belief that by the time of the next election, the details will have been forgotten? I can see it is tempting for CCHQ to denigrate Labour but surely the bigger risk is they end up fooling themselves.
Labour said they would spend something like an extra £48bn a year just in current spending, plus unspecified countless billions on 'investment', plus further dozens or hundreds of billions of nationalisations, plus Corbyn's off-the-cuff writing off of £100bn of student loans, plus a series of measures guaranteed to reduce economic activity, There were freebies for everyone - pensioners, students, public sector workers - except, oddly enough, the poorest.. And. most fantastically of all, all this was supposed to be delivered without increasing taxes on anyone earning less than £85K.
That combination was the biggest fantasy any major party has put forward in modern times, which is saying quite a lot.
Lots of things become possible with a land value tax.
We've reached the end game after ~35 years of engineering the economy to drain wealth from non-property owners and not-yet property owners and handing it to nimbys, land hoarders and "NO DSS" BTL landlords.
Think of it as a kind of pain-free equity release for the ~75% of voters who aren't the ~25% tory client vote.
It'll be wildly popular, even the Daily Mail will support it.
Dan Hannan's article on the same site sums up brilliantly why so many previously-Remain backers like myself switched last year to push Leave over the line.
In 2015, David Caok the threat of a “Leave” vote seriously. Whatever the explanation, the effect on British public opinion was immediate. “If that is how Brussels treats its second largest financial contributor before we vote,” people said, “how will it treat us if we vote to stay?”
Someone yesterday was posting that ‘he’d got a good deal for the City.
Oh, er.......
He did. Plus on no ever closer union.
Hannan is a twat. A patronising one at that because his appeal lies in him thinking that no one bar him understands what he is talking about. He is talking bollocks.
I always felt the so-called "emergency brake" was a terrrible piece of branding.
Instead of presenting it as a repatriation of powers (therefore demonstrating an opt-out of ever closer union, rather than muttering platitudes about it), presenting it as an emergency brake demonstrated
1) Immigration was out of control (you use an 'emergency' brake as a last resort, you only use it when something has gone badly wrong)
2) the use of the 'brake' analogy demostrated the temporary nature of the fix, it would be one foot on the brake then back on the gas soon after
3) Presenting it as a brake on benefits, not immigration, heavily implied that there could be no brake on immigration, further demonstrating the UK's impotence. Not to mention the requirement for EU approval for the UK to pull the brake in the first place.
It's why 'take back control' was such a powerful message. Time and time again the EU demonsrtated that neither the British citizen nor the British government was in control. For many people, this made leave the default option.
Yes, it (D's Deal) was good on the broad thrust - ever closer union - and the City. It was far less good on the emergency brake and it turns out that for the broad masses it was immigration that was important. No running away from that. For me it was crystallised most clearly on one DP with Kate Hoey vs Nick Herbert - he simply didn't have an answer to the immigration question. Indeed there isn't one.
That is another reason why Hannan is a twat. He rode on the coattails of the anti-immigration vote while espousing a whole lot of bollocks on other elements, sovereignty, political project, etc which was just a smokescreen because he had the anti-foreigner vote in his back pocket.
Lots of things become possible with a land value tax.
We've reached the end game after ~35 years of engineering the economy to drain wealth from non-property owners and not-yet property owners and handing it to nimbys, land hoarders and "NO DSS" BTL landlords.
Think of it as a kind of pain-free equity release for the ~75% of voters who aren't the ~25% tory client vote.
Ah yes, that wonderful tax which extracts money from nominal capital values, on the heroic assumption that the extraction of that money has no impact on the nominal capital values.
Of course capital values get bolloxed. It's not the government's job to prop them up.
Of course capital values get bolloxed. It's not the government's job to prop them up.
Is it?
No, but there's nothing to tax if no-one wants or can afford to buy.
What about the Californian system where you pay a percentage of the sale price on an annual basis in perpetuity? That doesn't seem to have killed the property market.
What about the Californian system where you pay a percentage of the sale price on an annual basis in perpetuity? That doesn't seem to have killed the property market.
That's not too dissimilar to our old rates system, although that was assessed on a notional rental value rather than a capital value.
There's no problem with that, provided the rate isn't too high. But it's not a magic bullet, you can't simply magic up money from nowhere with a new tax. So an LVT could be a small supplement to other taxes, but it can't be a game-changer as @Pong seems to think it is. "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to procure the largest quantity of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing". There might be a few extra feathers pluckable with an LVT, or indeed with extra council-tax bands, but that's it.
I think the whole Johnson thing in the last week has been the creation of the media and chattering class trying to make news where there was none.
Nice try! Mr Johnson wrote the 4000 word article. Mr Johnson allowed it to be published in a pro-Tory paper. Mr Johnson has worked for newspapers and knew exactly how they would react.
Labour said they would spend something like an extra £48bn a year just in current spending, plus unspecified countless billions on 'investment', plus further dozens or hundreds of billions of nationalisations, plus Corbyn's off-the-cuff writing off of £100bn of student loans, plus a series of measures guaranteed to reduce economic activity, There were freebies for everyone - pensioners, students, public sector workers - except, oddly enough, the poorest.. And. most fantastically of all, all this was supposed to be delivered without increasing taxes on anyone earning less than £85K. That combination was the biggest fantasy any major party has put forward in modern times, which is saying quite a lot.
Or, as Vince Cable put it, rather more succinctly, Labour believe that 2 + 2 = 7
Dan Hannan's article on the same site sums up brilliantly why so many previously-Remain backers like myself switched last year to push Leave over the line.
In 2015, David Caok the threat of a “Leave” vote seriously. Whatever the explanation, the effect on British public opinion was immediate. “If that is how Brussels treats its second largest financial contributor before we vote,” people said, “how will it treat us if we vote to stay?”
Someone yesterday was posting that ‘he’d got a good deal for the City.
Oh, er.......
He did. Plus on no ever closer union.
Hannan is a twat. A patronising one at that because his appeal lies in him thinking that no one bar him understands what he is talking about. He is talking bollocks.
1) Immigration was out of control (you use an 'emergency' brake as a last resort, you only use it when something has gone badly wrong)
2) the use of the 'brake' analogy demostrated the temporary nature of the fix, it would be one foot on the brake then back on the gas soon after
3) Presenting it as a brake on benefits, not immigration, heavily implied that there could be no brake on immigration, further demonstrating the UK's impotence. Not to mention the requirement for EU approval for the UK to pull the brake in the first place.
It's why 'take back control' was such a powerful message. Time and time again the EU demonsrtated that neither the British citizen nor the British government was in control. For many people, this made leave the default option.
Yes, it (D's Deal) was good on the broad thrust - ever closer union - and the City. It was far less good on the emergency brake and it turns out that for the broad masses it was immigration that was important. No running away from that. For me it was crystallised most clearly on one DP with Kate Hoey vs Nick Herbert - he simply didn't have an answer to the immigration question. Indeed there isn't one.
That is another reason why Hannan is a twat. He rode on the coattails of the anti-immigration vote while espousing a whole lot of bollocks on other elements, sovereignty, political project, etc which was just a smokescreen because he had the anti-foreigner vote in his back pocket.
The weird feature of the immigration ‘debate” (slanging match would be a better term) is that as immigration falls people such as farmers and hoteliers are complaining that they can’t get staff. It’s all right ‘all the Poles” or whatever doing people out of jobs, but the jobs they took, and are now vacataing, don’t seem to be being filled by the locals.
Everything now hinges on Therea's speech in Florence. She needs to set out her vision as EEA Swiss Model Lite Plus Plus (or whatver it is) - i.e. the very antithesis of the Ultra Hard Brexit Boris has set his store by. Boris must be utterly humiliated and the rest of his Hard Leave cabal ground into the dust. I want to hear screams of 'Treachery' when Theresa makes her speech. I want to see Leavers attack and vilify her in the same way they did to Heath and Cameron. I want to see Farage fume. Only by doing this can Theresa hope to survive.
Yes a massive capitulation to the EU's demands is surely a cracking strategy at this point in the negotiations...
Do you consider paying for your internet connection capitulating to the internet providers demands?
Dan Hannan's article on the same site sums up brilliantly why so many previously-Remain backers like myself switched last year to push Leave over the line.
In 2015, David Cao-explained
Someone yesterday was posting that ‘he’d got a good deal for the City.
Oh, er.......
He did. Plus on no ever closer union.
Hannan is a twat. A patronising one at that because his appeal lies in him thinking that no one bar him understands what he is talking about. He is talking bollocks.
1) Immigration was out of control (you use an 'emergency' brake as a last resort, you only use it when something has gone badly wrong)
2) the use of the 'brake' analogy demostrated the temporary nature of the fix, it would be one foot on the brake then back on the gas soon after
3) Presenting it as a brake on benefits, not immigration, heavily implied that there could be no brake on immigration, further demonstrating the UK's impotence. Not to mention the requirement for EU approval for the UK to pull the brake in the first place.
It's why 'take back control' was such a powerful message. Time and time again the EU demonsrtated that neither the British citizen nor the British government was in control. For many people, this made leave the default option.
Yes, it (D's Deal) was good That is another reason why Hannan is a twat. He rode on the coattails of the anti-immigration vote while espousing a whole lot of bollocks on other elements, sovereignty, political project, etc which was just a smokescreen because he had the anti-foreigner vote in his back pocket.
The weird feature of the immigration ‘debate” (slanging match would be a better term) is that as immigration falls people such as farmers and hoteliers are complaining that they can’t get staff. It’s all right ‘all the Poles” or whatever doing people out of jobs, but the jobs they took, and are now vacataing, don’t seem to be being filled by the locals.
The strangest thing about the immigration debate is how the media endlessly repeats the employer whinge of 'we can't get the staff' without adding 'at the wages being offered'.
EDIT: on reflection, it's probably explained by the fact that journalists personally benefit from the abundance of low cost labour.
Yes, it was a terrible night for the iceberg, smashed into a million pieces by The RMS Titanic.
You are so negative - pleased I am more positive
As a homeowner with a inflation protected income I imagine you have a lot more to be positive about than someone working, seeing real term reductions in their income and paying off a mortgage.
I do have concern for working people but the idea we did not struggle when we worked with day to day spending is absurd. We had much higher interest rates and a weekly battle with budgets but we learnt to live within our means, and if we could not afford it we did not buy it.
When I bought my first house, in 1981, it cost £20k, about 4 times my then salary as a new graduate. An identical house a few doors away is now on the market at £630k - more than 20 times an average new graduate salary.
And this has come about largely through government policies - relaxing constraints on lending, removing controls on private sector rents, encouraging short-term, insecure tenancies, and failing to ensure that the supply of housing kept pace with increased population.
Buying a house is far, far more difficult for young people today than it was for my generation. And we wonder why they are angry.
That depends on where you live. Outside London and the South East (where in places, prices are indeed ludicrous) housing has become more affordable relative to income, than it was 10 years ago.
I think the whole Johnson thing in the last week has been the creation of the media and chattering class trying to make news where there was none.
Nice try! Mr Johnson wrote the 4000 word article. Mr Johnson allowed it to be published in a pro-Tory paper. Mr Johnson has worked for newspapers and knew exactly how they would react.
Boris also put it up on his Facebook to get around the DT paywall
Labour said they would spend something like an extra £48bn a year just in current spending, plus unspecified countless billions on 'investment', plus further dozens or hundreds of billions of nationalisations, plus Corbyn's off-the-cuff writing off of £100bn of student loans, plus a series of measures guaranteed to reduce economic activity, There were freebies for everyone - pensioners, students, public sector workers - except, oddly enough, the poorest.. And. most fantastically of all, all this was supposed to be delivered without increasing taxes on anyone earning less than £85K. That combination was the biggest fantasy any major party has put forward in modern times, which is saying quite a lot.
Or, as Vince Cable put it, rather more succinctly, Labour believe that 2 + 2 = 7
Given that so many more households have two earners than was the case forty years ago, it's hardly surprising that the ratio of house prices to one individual's income has increased.
Over the next twenty or thirty years there is a strong possibility that the EU and UK will be ploughing different furrows and traveling different directions.
In social policy, economic policy, and in international relations it is possible to imagine a significant divergence between EU and UK policies, actions and ideologies.
In terms of the development, wealth, social well being and stability of the UK and EU over the next twenty or thirty years I wonder which will adopt the better route to prosper most, suffer least and enjoy the better internal harmony.
Get real! Your use of 'the UK' implies you are taking Northern Ireland with you on this adventure to the sunlit uplands. How in hell do you think this significant divergence is compatible with the Good Friday Agreement, or in maintaining the cohesion of the rest of the country?
Where do I mention Sunny Uplands? I pose a question or two without bias to either side, looking for opinions on possible potential developments. The status quo is that we (including NI Scotland and Wales) are leaving the EU, if article 50 is completed - which I would suggest is odds on. Why is it that you see problems, challenges and difficulties as insurmountable? Why do you have so little faith in humanity? Why do you think one size fits all equals harmony? Have you ever thought outside your comfort zone? Do you not see significant divergence between current EU members, some of whom are adjacent to each other? Is the EU dysfunctional at its land borders with other non member states? Do you not celebrate diversity as enhancing the richness of humanity, and see a tiny bit of that eroded by the EU?
Given that so many more households have two earners than was the case forty years ago, it's hardly surprising that the ratio of house prices to one individual's income has increased.
If you have an hour to spare this is well worth watching.
I think the whole Johnson thing in the last week has been the creation of the media and chattering class trying to make news where there was none.
Nice try! Mr Johnson wrote the 4000 word article. Mr Johnson allowed it to be published in a pro-Tory paper. Mr Johnson has worked for newspapers and knew exactly how they would react.
I would add that Mr Johnson was aware that 3 opinion pieces would appear simultaneously, all saying Boris for leader!
Surely you jest? We can just sign on the dotted line with EFTA and Bob's your uncle - we can tell the EU27 to go whistle.
Indeed we can. So long as they want us. Glad to see you agree now. Of course the problem is that our current leadership have decided against that option because of the single issue of freedom of movement. I think they are wrong and would follow Rochdale Pioneers Brexit very happily but I doubt we will now get the opportunity under May.
None of which changes the basic legal position as I have already set out. Nor does it alter CopperSulphate's correct assertion that we are where we are now because of the Eurofanatics like you who tried to force us down a road the majority of the public were not wiling to travel.
CopperSulphate appears to be uncaring of facts and reality. He referred to my "beloved EU" which I had told him I voted to leave, and then "our" ludicrous 2 year deadline. To complain about the deadline enshrined in a treaty we signed is like howling at the moon. Its 2 years. We know its 2 years. The campaign to leave knew it was 2 years. Isn't the reality that CS makes a petulant small child's tantrum of not getting their own way?
On EFTA I think they have opened the door as overtly as they can to our rejoining. The UK would lend sufficient weight to make EFTA a counterbalance to the EU, a free trade association not dragged down by the baggage of political and fiscal union but still a trade association. Which is why we have to be in it. This is a trading nation. We wanted free trade, Thatcher drove it through. Why would we want a return to the bad old days before the single market and if they were the good old days as suggested why did Thatcherites so vociferously champion the single market?
And then we have the simple practical reality. Even if WTO roles was a good option for us - and its not - we can't possibly set ourselves up to trade freely that way by March 2019. So it HAS to be EEA and that logically means rejoin EFTA. the Norway option. Touted by the leave lobby during the referendum campaign but now shouted down as "betrayal" as the goal posts are shifted.
And free movement? Simple. We impose the restrictions on free movement already open to us. Its a "win" as part of the transition to buy off the "I don't like these foreigners" brigade and it actually allows some change.
On a merrier note, Retail Sales rose by 1% in August, or 1.2% on the quarter.
Is this before or after inflation?
On a different point, I suspect it was in 1642 that the English were are obsessed by Sovereignty as they are to-day.
I don't think that was counted as a success.
No it was a big success long term. We limited the power of the monarch (beheading has that effect) for good, and paved the way for Parliamentary democracy, and going out into the world while the continent squabbled away.
Granted there was fallout and many died along the way, not least in Ireland (I assume you are Irish or living there?) which is to be regretted, but the alternative was to submit to a continental style absolutist regime, under a (to the English because Charles 1 was actually Scottish by birth) foreign ruler. Instead of that they rolled the constitutional dice.
If only I could think of a modern parallel.....
But that took another 40 years and the driver was religion not sovereignty. The result may have been good for England, but many of the problems in N.I. start there.
Surely you jest? We can just sign on the dotted line with EFTA and Bob's your uncle - we can tell the EU27 to go whistle.
Indeed we can. So long as they want us. Glad to see you agree now. Of course the problem is that our current leadership have decided against that option because of the single issue of freedom of movement. I think they are wrong and would follow Rochdale Pioneers Brexit very happily but I doubt we will now get the opportunity under May.
None of which changes the basic legal position as I have already set out. Nor does it alter CopperSulphate's correct assertion that we are where we are now because of the Eurofanatics like you who tried to force us down a road the majority of the public were not wiling to travel.
My current fantasy / delusional Florence speech:
1. Announce that we have ALREADY signed an option to join EFTA, on either a permanent or a 5 year fixed term transitional basis, the option staying open until 31/12/2020. 2. Boris to be made Deputy PM in charge of Brexit and to chair all Brexit discussions at cabinet, with TM staying as PM for all other matters, providing an ability to focus on non Brexit issues. 3. Brexit negotiation to continue, with the aim of securing Brexiteers aims and with a much lower need for agreement. Prepare domestically for a hard Brexit. 4. There will be no transition deal with the EU itself, and we will not invoke our EFTA option before March 2020. 5. Expect a Tory leadership contest in March 2021.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will have a try before you buy Brexit.
"The worst instance was in 2013, when, after five years of negotiations, other European governments had finally agreed a new fuel economy standard for cars: they would produce an average of no more than 95g of CO2 per km by 2020. Merkel moved in to close the whole thing down.
She is alleged to have threatened the then president of the European council, Irish taoiseach Enda Kenny, with the cancellation of Ireland’s bailout funds. She told the Netherlands and Hungary the German car plants in their countries would be closed.
She struck a filthy deal with David Cameron, offering to frustrate European banking regulations if he helped her to block the fuel regulations. Through these brutal strategies, she managed to derail the agreement. The €700,000 donation her party then received from the major shareholders in BMW does not suggest they were unhappy with what she had achieved."
I'm glad someone was looking out for national interests.
Everything now hinges on Therea's speech in Florence. She needs to set out her vision as EEA Swiss Model Lite Plus Plus (or whatver it is) - i.e. the very antithesis of the Ultra Hard Brexit Boris has set his store by. Boris must be utterly humiliated and the rest of his Hard Leave cabal ground into the dust. I want to hear screams of 'Treachery' when Theresa makes her speech. I want to see Leavers attack and vilify her in the same way they did to Heath and Cameron. I want to see Farage fume. Only by doing this can Theresa hope to survive.
Yes a massive capitulation to the EU's demands is surely a cracking strategy at this point in the negotiations...
Do you consider paying for your internet connection capitulating to the internet providers demands?
Do the internet providers pay you to supply your home?
Everything now hinges on Therea's speech in Florence. She needs to set out her vision as EEA Swiss Model Lite Plus Plus (or whatver it is) - i.e. the very antithesis of the Ultra Hard Brexit Boris has set his store by. Boris must be utterly humiliated and the rest of his Hard Leave cabal ground into the dust. I want to hear screams of 'Treachery' when Theresa makes her speech. I want to see Leavers attack and vilify her in the same way they did to Heath and Cameron. I want to see Farage fume. Only by doing this can Theresa hope to survive.
Yes a massive capitulation to the EU's demands is surely a cracking strategy at this point in the negotiations...
Do you consider paying for your internet connection capitulating to the internet providers demands?
Well, I would pay for the notice period that was specified in the contract. Not sure I would pay for the share of the new network they planned to build because they thought I would be a customer forever....
it's not a magic bullet, you can't simply magic up money from nowhere with a new tax. So an LVT could be a small supplement to other taxes, but it can't be a game-changer as @Pong seems to think it is. "
From the government's perspective you can just 'magic up money' with taxes.
A LVT is a game changer because it has excellent technical qualities in that it efficient, equitable, and difficult to evade.
It could raise lots of money if we wanted and/or it could replace a lot of other taxes.
Edit: just to add - I think property taxes raise something like $55bn in California...
CopperSulphate appears to be uncaring of facts and reality. He referred to my "beloved EU" which I had told him I voted to leave, and then "our" ludicrous 2 year deadline. To complain about the deadline enshrined in a treaty we signed is like howling at the moon. Its 2 years. We know its 2 years. The campaign to leave knew it was 2 years. Isn't the reality that CS makes a petulant small child's tantrum of not getting their own way?
On EFTA I think they have opened the door as overtly as they can to our rejoining. The UK would lend sufficient weight to make EFTA a counterbalance to the EU, a free trade association not dragged down by the baggage of political and fiscal union but still a trade association. Which is why we have to be in it. This is a trading nation. We wanted free trade, Thatcher drove it through. Why would we want a return to the bad old days before the single market and if they were the good old days as suggested why did Thatcherites so vociferously champion the single market?
And then we have the simple practical reality. Even if WTO roles was a good option for us - and its not - we can't possibly set ourselves up to trade freely that way by March 2019. So it HAS to be EEA and that logically means rejoin EFTA. the Norway option. Touted by the leave lobby during the referendum campaign but now shouted down as "betrayal" as the goal posts are shifted.
And free movement? Simple. We impose the restrictions on free movement already open to us. Its a "win" as part of the transition to buy off the "I don't like these foreigners" brigade and it actually allows some change.
Yep. I had replied to CS's retort to another poster without having seen him earlier accuse you of being a Remainer.
On the meat of the matter I think the problem we have is that those considerable numbers of Leavers like you and I who see EFTA/EEA as the obvious route are now caught between the Fragistas who always saw immigration as the most important issue and the Nouveau Leavers like May who were not in favournof Brexit but now have to outdo the UKIP tendency when it comes to the sort of Brexit they think the public want. The sensible and practical EFTA option has been crushed in the middle.
CopperSulphate appears to be uncaring of facts and reality. He referred to my "beloved EU" which I had told him I voted to leave, and then "our" ludicrous 2 year deadline. To complain about the deadline enshrined in a treaty we signed is like howling at the moon. Its 2 years. We know its 2 years. The campaign to leave knew it was 2 years. Isn't the reality that CS makes a petulant small child's tantrum of not getting their own way?
On EFTA I think they have opened the door as overtly as they can to our rejoining. The UK would lend sufficient weight to make EFTA a counterbalance to the EU, a free trade association not dragged down by the baggage of political and fiscal union but still a trade association. Which is why we have to be in it. This is a trading nation. We wanted free trade, Thatcher drove it through. Why would we want a return to the bad old days before the single market and if they were the good old days as suggested why did Thatcherites so vociferously champion the single market?
And then we have the simple practical reality. Even if WTO roles was a good option for us - and its not - we can't possibly set ourselves up to trade freely that way by March 2019. So it HAS to be EEA and that logically means rejoin EFTA. the Norway option. Touted by the leave lobby during the referendum campaign but now shouted down as "betrayal" as the goal posts are shifted.
And free movement? Simple. We impose the restrictions on free movement already open to us. Its a "win" as part of the transition to buy off the "I don't like these foreigners" brigade and it actually allows some change.
This is obviously the only practicable solution that can avoid a cliff edge in the time available before March 2019. However, it places the UK in the position of making financial contributions to, and obeying rules set by, the EU without having any say in either the spending of the money or setting the rules. And if this is a "transitional" period what incentive is there for the EU to make progress toward a final exit deal? It would be in their interest to use the continuing threat of a cliff edge to keep the UK in the transitional arrangement permanently.
Moving to this position completely undermines the case for leaving, which is, perhaps, why leavers are so opposed to it.
Lots of things become possible with a land value tax.
We've reached the end game after ~35 years of engineering the economy to drain wealth from non-property owners and not-yet property owners and handing it to nimbys, land hoarders and "NO DSS" BTL landlords.
Think of it as a kind of pain-free equity release for the ~75% of voters who aren't the ~25% tory client vote.
Ah yes, that wonderful tax which extracts money from nominal capital values, on the heroic assumption that the extraction of that money has no impact on the nominal capital values.
Of course capital values get bolloxed. It's not the government's job to prop them up.
Is it?
Not unless you care about avoiding a second collapse of the financial sector and the destruction of a shitload of economic value accumulated over a lifetime of work. But who gives a toss about that as long as the lefties get their commie utopia?
CopperSulphate appears to be uncaring of facts and reality. He referred to my "beloved EU" which I had told him I voted to leave, and then "our" ludicrous 2 year deadline. To complain about the deadline enshrined in a treaty we signed is like howling at the moon. Its 2 years. We know its 2 years. The campaign to leave knew it was 2 years. Isn't the reality that CS makes a petulant small child's tantrum of not getting their own way?
On EFTA I think they have opened the door as overtly as they can to our rejoining. The UK would lend sufficient weight to make EFTA a counterbalance to the EU, a free trade association not dragged down by the baggage of political and fiscal union but still a trade association. Which is why we have to be in it. This is a trading nation. We wanted free trade, Thatcher drove it through. Why would we want a return to the bad old days before the single market and if they were the good old days as suggested why did Thatcherites so vociferously champion the single market?
And then we have the simple practical reality. Even if WTO roles was a good option for us - and its not - we can't possibly set ourselves up to trade freely that way by March 2019. So it HAS to be EEA and that logically means rejoin EFTA. the Norway option. Touted by the leave lobby during the referendum campaign but now shouted down as "betrayal" as the goal posts are shifted.
And free movement? Simple. We impose the restrictions on free movement already open to us. Its a "win" as part of the transition to buy off the "I don't like these foreigners" brigade and it actually allows some change.
This is obviously the only practicable solution that can avoid a cliff edge in the time available before March 2019. However, it places the UK in the position of making financial contributions to, and obeying rules set by, the EU without having any say in either the spending of the money or setting the rules. And if this is a "transitional" period what incentive is there for the EU to make progress toward a final exit deal? It would be in their interest to use the continuing threat of a cliff edge to keep the UK in the transitional arrangement permanently.
Moving to this position completely undermines the case for leaving, which is, perhaps, why leavers are so opposed to it.
No it doesnt. This is the same Remainer myth that was touted before the referendum
Everything now hinges on Therea's speech in Florence. She needs to set out her vision as EEA Swiss Model Lite Plus Plus (or whatver it is) - i.e. the very antithesis of the Ultra Hard Brexit Boris has set his store by. Boris must be utterly humiliated and the rest of his Hard Leave cabal ground into the dust. I want to hear screams of 'Treachery' when Theresa makes her speech. I want to see Leavers attack and vilify her in the same way they did to Heath and Cameron. I want to see Farage fume. Only by doing this can Theresa hope to survive.
Yes a massive capitulation to the EU's demands is surely a cracking strategy at this point in the negotiations...
Do you consider paying for your internet connection capitulating to the internet providers demands?
Well, I would pay for the notice period that was specified in the contract. Not sure I would pay for the share of the new network they planned to build because they thought I would be a customer forever....
A good analogy I saw was that it's like leaving Netflix and trying to negotiate a deal directly with the film studios.
For anyone hoping for EFTA/ EEA, it just isn't going to happen in the near future. May's speech is going to be a great let down. She has made far too many promises and red lines over controlling immigration, stopping payments, and leaving the ECJ, all of which would be fatally compromised by joining the EEA. She stands or falls with hard Brexit.
Johnson has merely found a way of saving face, by insinuating that he has forced May back from an EEA/EFTA position.
CopperSulphate appears to be uncaring of facts and reality. He referred to my "beloved EU" which I had told him I voted to leave, and then "our" ludicrous 2 year deadline. To complain about the deadline enshrined in a treaty we signed is like howling at the moon. Its 2 years. We know its 2 years. The campaign to leave knew it was 2 years. Isn't the reality that CS makes a petulant small child's tantrum of not getting their own way?
On EFTA I think they have opened the door as overtly as they can to our rejoining. The UK would lend sufficient weight to make EFTA a counterbalance to the EU, a free trade association not dragged down by the baggage of political and fiscal union but still a trade association. Which is why we have to be in it. This is a trading nation. We wanted free trade, Thatcher drove it through. Why would we want a return to the bad old days before the single market and if they were the good old days as suggested why did Thatcherites so vociferously champion the single market?
And then we have the simple practical reality. Even if WTO roles was a good option for us - and its not - we can't possibly set ourselves up to trade freely that way by March 2019. So it HAS to be EEA and that logically means rejoin EFTA. the Norway option. Touted by the leave lobby during the referendum campaign but now shouted down as "betrayal" as the goal posts are shifted.
And free movement? Simple. We impose the restrictions on free movement already open to us. Its a "win" as part of the transition to buy off the "I don't like these foreigners" brigade and it actually allows some change.
This is obviously the only practicable solution that can avoid a cliff edge in the time available before March 2019. However, it places the UK in the position of making financial contributions to, and obeying rules set by, the EU without having any say in either the spending of the money or setting the rules. And if this is a "transitional" period what incentive is there for the EU to make progress toward a final exit deal? It would be in their interest to use the continuing threat of a cliff edge to keep the UK in the transitional arrangement permanently.
Moving to this position completely undermines the case for leaving, which is, perhaps, why leavers are so opposed to it.
No it doesnt. This is the same Remainer myth that was touted before the referendum
It might not undermine *your* case but it does very clearly undermine the case that was sold to the people, and the case that the majority of passionate Brexiteers believe in.
What's the ranking if the variations of Mohammed are consolidated?
One very interesting statistic is the extent to which names are fragmenting. If you go back 40 years, the top ten names were around half of the total. It's now around 25%.
Everything now hinges on Therea's speech in Florence. She needs to set out her vision as EEA Swiss Model Lite Plus Plus (or whatver it is) - i.e. the very antithesis of the Ultra Hard Brexit Boris has set his store by. Boris must be utterly humiliated and the rest of his Hard Leave cabal ground into the dust. I want to hear screams of 'Treachery' when Theresa makes her speech. I want to see Leavers attack and vilify her in the same way they did to Heath and Cameron. I want to see Farage fume. Only by doing this can Theresa hope to survive.
I'm not too worried whether Theresa survives or not and that shouldn't be a consideration in getting the least bad deal for the UK. If she is now trying to get a softer Brexit than other contenders for PM, then good luck to her. However I don't have a huge amount of confidence in her judgement, so fingers should remain crossed.
Yes, it (D's Deal) was good on the broad thrust - ever closer union - and the City. It was far less good on the emergency brake and it turns out that for the broad masses it was immigration that was important. No running away from that. For me it was crystallised most clearly on one DP with Kate Hoey vs Nick Herbert - he simply didn't have an answer to the immigration question. Indeed there isn't one.
That is another reason why Hannan is a twat. He rode on the coattails of the anti-immigration vote while espousing a whole lot of bollocks on other elements, sovereignty, political project, etc which was just a smokescreen because he had the anti-foreigner vote in his back pocket.
The weird feature of the immigration ‘debate” (slanging match would be a better term) is that as immigration falls people such as farmers and hoteliers are complaining that they can’t get staff. It’s all right ‘all the Poles” or whatever doing people out of jobs, but the jobs they took, and are now vacataing, don’t seem to be being filled by the locals.
Or is that a ‘yet’?
Theory: A lot of it has to do with class.
Over the last twenty years or so, starting with the Blair era, we have moved decisively away from the upper/middle/working class of old to 'we're all middle class now' in attitude (if not in fact).
This has been fuelled by two things, 1) sending every kid off to uni to do a useless degree (I've got a degree in media studies, I should be working at the BBC, not behind a bar!) and 2) the creation of an 'immigrant class', jobs that, in the south east particularly, are almost exclusively done by immigrants (try finding a British person working in Pret, for example).
So even if we don't look down on immigrants individually, the ever class-obsessed Brits look down on them collectively as a 'lower class' doing lower status jobs which most native brits would now see as beneath them.
The 'we're all middle class now' revolution of the Blair era created the need for the old working class to be superceded with a new immigrant class.
The working class left behind during this era resent immigrants for reducing their own social status, while the newly minted 'middle' class find there simply aren't enough middle class jobs to go round.
The end result is a fundamental disconnect between the perceived social status of the native British majority and an economy able to support their expectations. A lot of low-status jobs that nobody wants to do.
In other words, we haven't just built an economy that relies on immigration, we've built a society that relies on it. And that is far more dangerous.
Everything now hinges on Therea's speech in Florence. She needs to set out her vision as EEA Swiss Model Lite Plus Plus (or whatver it is) - i.e. the very antithesis of the Ultra Hard Brexit Boris has set his store by. Boris must be utterly humiliated and the rest of his Hard Leave cabal ground into the dust. I want to hear screams of 'Treachery' when Theresa makes her speech. I want to see Leavers attack and vilify her in the same way they did to Heath and Cameron. I want to see Farage fume. Only by doing this can Theresa hope to survive.
Erm, no.
Doing that, going against everything in the Lancaster House speech, not sorting out free movement, would see her challenged before she got home.
What Remainers deeply desire is not what the Tory party or the country want. Strange that, anyone would think they lost....
CopperSulphate appears to be uncaring of facts and reality. He referred to my "beloved EU" which I had told him I voted to leave, and then "our" ludicrous 2 year deadline. To complain about the deadline enshrined in a treaty we signed is like howling at the moon. Its 2 years. We know its 2 years. The campaign to leave knew it was 2 years. Isn't the reality that CS makes a petulant small child's tantrum of not getting their own way?
On EFTA I think they have opened the door as overtly as they can to our rejoining. The UK would lend sufficient weight to make EFTA a counterbalance to the EU, a free trade association not dragged down by the baggage of political and fiscal union but still a trade association. Which is why we have to be in it. This is a trading nation. We wanted free trade, Thatcher drove it through. Why would we want a return to the bad old days before the single market and if they were the good old days as suggested why did Thatcherites so vociferously champion the single market?
And then we have the simple practical reality. Even if WTO roles was a good option for us - and its not - we can't possibly set ourselves up to trade freely that way by March 2019. So it HAS to be EEA and that logically means rejoin EFTA. the Norway option. Touted by the leave lobby during the referendum campaign but now shouted down as "betrayal" as the goal posts are shifted.
And free movement? Simple. We impose the restrictions on free movement already open to us. Its a "win" as part of the transition to buy off the "I don't like these foreigners" brigade and it actually allows some change.
Yep. I had replied to CS's retort to another poster without having seen him earlier accuse you of being a Remainer.
On the meat of the matter I think the problem we have is that those considerable numbers of Leavers like you and I who see EFTA/EEA as the obvious route are now caught between the Fragistas who always saw immigration as the most important issue and the Nouveau Leavers like May who were not in favournof Brexit but now have to outdo the UKIP tendency when it comes to the sort of Brexit they think the public want. The sensible and practical EFTA option has been crushed in the middle.
I am a Nouveau leaver in favour of some version of EFTA, I suspect that is the case for a significant majority of remainers.
The referendum has toxified political discourse to the point that opinion is so polarised between leavers and remainers that they cannot work together to put this point of view forward. In consequence, the discourse is dominated at the moment by Hard Brexit and Hard Remain.
Everything now hinges on Therea's speech in Florence. She needs to set out her vision as EEA Swiss Model Lite Plus Plus (or whatver it is) - i.e. the very antithesis of the Ultra Hard Brexit Boris has set his store by. Boris must be utterly humiliated and the rest of his Hard Leave cabal ground into the dust. I want to hear screams of 'Treachery' when Theresa makes her speech. I want to see Leavers attack and vilify her in the same way they did to Heath and Cameron. I want to see Farage fume. Only by doing this can Theresa hope to survive.
Yes a massive capitulation to the EU's demands is surely a cracking strategy at this point in the negotiations...
Do you consider paying for your internet connection capitulating to the internet providers demands?
Well, I would pay for the notice period that was specified in the contract. Not sure I would pay for the share of the new network they planned to build because they thought I would be a customer forever....
A good analogy I saw was that it's like leaving Netflix and trying to negotiate a deal directly with the film studios.
If you were 15% of the studio's market they'd agree.
On a merrier note, Retail Sales rose by 1% in August, or 1.2% on the quarter.
Is this before or after inflation?
On a different point, I suspect it was in 1642 that the English were are obsessed by Sovereignty as they are to-day.
I don't think that was counted as a success.
No it was a big success long term. We limited the power of the monarch (beheading has that effect) for good, and paved the way for Parliamentary democracy, and going out into the world while the continent squabbled away.
Granted there was fallout and many died along the way, not least in Ireland (I assume you are Irish or living there?) which is to be regretted, but the alternative was to submit to a continental style absolutist regime, under a (to the English because Charles 1 was actually Scottish by birth) foreign ruler. Instead of that they rolled the constitutional dice.
If only I could think of a modern parallel.....
But that took another 40 years and the driver was religion not sovereignty. The result may have been good for England, but many of the problems in N.I. start there.
Granted, but bear in mind in the 17th century "politics" was pretty much "religion" and all the bandwidth was Christian at least in NW Europe, though I think gradually it got "more politics" "less religion" as the century wore on.
From a 21st century perspective we wouldn't really think it a bright idea to send our religious minorities to another country across the sea to dispossess the locals and set up home, though the self same process led to NI and the USA I guess both starting at about the same time, if with differing outcomes.
Had Charles won, history would be very different indeed. "I am the state" might've been an English phrase and the guillotine set up in London in the 1790's rather than Paris. We might not have the outlook we do on the world which leads many of us to look at the continent's way of doing things somewhat askance at times.
Yes, it (D's Deal) was good on the broad thrust - ever closer union - and the City. It was far less good on the emergency brake and it turns out that for the broad masses it was immigration that was important. No running away from that. For me it was crystallised most clearly on one DP with Kate Hoey vs Nick Herbert - he simply didn't have an answer to the immigration question. Indeed there isn't one.
That is another reason why Hannan is a twat. He rode on the coattails of the anti-immigration vote while espousing a whole lot of bollocks on other elements, sovereignty, political project, etc which was just a smokescreen because he had the anti-foreigner vote in his back pocket.
The weird feature of the immigration ‘debate” (slanging match would be a better term) is that as immigration falls people such as farmers and hoteliers are complaining that they can’t get staff. It’s all right ‘all the Poles” or whatever doing people out of jobs, but the jobs they took, and are now vacataing, don’t seem to be being filled by the locals.
Or is that a ‘yet’?
Theory: A lot of it has to do with class.
Over the last twenty years or so, starting with the Blair era, we have moved decisively away from the upper/middle/working class of old to 'we're all middle class now' in attitude (if not in fact).
This has been fuelled by two things, 1) sending every kid off to uni to do a useless degree (I've got a degree in media studies, I should be working at the BBC, not behind a bar!) and 2) the creation of an 'immigrant class', jobs that, in the south east particularly, are almost exclusively done by immigrants (try finding a British person working in Pret, for example).
So even if we don't look down on immigrants individually, the ever class-obsessed Brits look down on them collectively as a 'lower class' doing lower status jobs which most native brits would now see as beneath them.
The 'we're all middle class now' revolution of the Blair era created the need for the old working class to be superceded with a new immigrant class.
The working class left behind during this era resent immigrants for reducing their own social status, while the newly minted 'middle' class find there simply aren't enough middle class jobs to go round.
The end result is a fundamental disconnect between the perceived social status of the native British majority and an economy able to support their expectations. A lot of low-status jobs that nobody wants to do.
In other words, we haven't just built an economy that relies on immigration, we've built a society that relies on it. And that is far more dangerous.
Verse 3 of 'All things bright and beautiful', not much sung these days?
For anyone hoping for EFTA/ EEA, it just isn't going to happen in the near future. May's speech is going to be a great let down. She has made far too many promises and red lines over controlling immigration, stopping payments, and leaving the ECJ, all of which would be fatally compromised by joining the EEA. She stands or falls with hard Brexit.
Oh I'm certain it won't happen. Politically the Tories have decided that suicide is a better option than compromise with each other.
And I do know what will happen. Because the people who actually do practical things know what will happen and are noisily telling anyone who will listen and isn't shouting traitor at them.
The EU aren't going to change their mind on enforcing the rules of the EU We can have a trade agreement with the EU (via EFTA) or fall back to the WTO We won't have the staff/systems in place for March 19 which means "WTO" would only be imposed by the EU as we aren't capable of imposing tariffs The EU WILL impose their "external border no trade agreement" protocols which is physically check everything coming in. Which will effectively close down our border (cf eastern European checkpoints and remember it'll be the French doing it...) Our trade will slow to a stop overnight. Which kills any manufacturer with a JIT european supply chain. Which empties the shelves of our supermarkets and closes restaurants. Which creates civil unrest inside a fortnight Which makes the public angry. The people responsible will pay. That's the Tory Party - who will not survive the shitfest that is hard Brexit. And if Labour nutters want to keep trying for "no deal is better than the single market" that'll be us dead as well.
I wanted away from the EU for simple reasons. We aren't a participant in its direction of travel - the Euro, the forthcoming fiscal union, Schengen. And as they move forward that would expel us from the core anyway - the "two speed Europe" talked about in the past. So better to step off at a time of our choosing rather than theirs. But we have to trade. And if you want to sell products into a market you have to be compliant with its rules. So why leave the EEA?
As it is, I'd stay in the EU and even be forced to join the Euro and Schengen if need be - anything is better than the suicidal go splat off the cliff hard Brexit apocalyseofuck planned by BoJo et al.
"If we don’t do that and run our affairs well, I’d like to think we would be a more competitive economy. We would be a more global economy and more outward facing. I think we could escape from what is holding us back. We could be more open, less protectionist and more competitive."
It might not undermine *your* case but it does very clearly undermine the case that was sold to the people, and the case that the majority of passionate Brexiteers believe in.
You could argue that leaving the EU political structure honours the referendum result in that we would have "left the EU". But moving the UK from being a participant to a spectator in decision-making is nonsensical - it's like an employee voluntarily withdrawing from negotiating their own pay and conditions and accepting whatever the employer decides to offer.
Johnson has merely found a way of saving face, by insinuating that he has forced May back from an EEA/EFTA position.
Or his positioning is for further down the track when he thinks Theresa will ultimately be forced into adopting such a stance.
Boris is a national hero. Leave would never have won the referendum if he had not led the campaign. Now, when he sees that the civil service in cahoots with Hammond and the Treasury are trying to backtrack on the result, he makes a timely intervention and they have to back down. EEA is not Brexit.
The vitriol aimed at Boris from all the remainers here has one basis - he beat you once and he has just done it again!
I remember when you Leavers said only a Leave victory would unite the Tory party.
So if you voted Leave you’re responsible for this thread.
somr of us keep close to the real betting stories
the true betting indicator ( what colour shirt do the champios wear ) is pointing to a conservative victory today
Liverpool = crap, Arsenal = double crap
top three teams blue red blue
all Labour's hopes rest on Mourinho
I was at the cricket yesterday, where another Yorkshire accented former public schoolboy ruled the world.
Have you noticed Manchester United fans have become even more racist after Brexit.
Cricket is the game for civilised people.
No, I'm from Ulster we dont do racism only sectarian bigotry
cricket is just boring as hell, I'm a hurling fan
30 Sinn Feiners bashing the bejasus out of each other with sticks for 70 minutes is the ultimate orangemans game
For the first 8 years of my working life, i experienced your sectarian bias, and then came to London, where racism (including Irish) was still fairly prevalent. There's no difference.
The weird feature of the immigration ‘debate” (slanging match would be a better term) is that as immigration falls people such as farmers and hoteliers are complaining that they can’t get staff. It’s all right ‘all the Poles” or whatever doing people out of jobs, but the jobs they took, and are now vacataing, don’t seem to be being filled by the locals.
Or is that a ‘yet’?
Theory: A lot of it has to do with class.
Over the last twenty years or so, starting with the Blair era, we have moved decisively away from the upper/middle/working class of old to 'we're all middle class now' in attitude (if not in fact).
This has been fuelled by two things, 1) sending every kid off to uni to do a useless degree (I've got a degree in media studies, I should be working at the BBC, not behind a bar!) and 2) the creation of an 'immigrant class', jobs that, in the south east particularly, are almost exclusively done by immigrants (try finding a British person working in Pret, for example).
So even if we don't look down on immigrants individually, the ever class-obsessed Brits look down on them collectively as a 'lower class' doing lower status jobs which most native brits would now see as beneath them.
The 'we're all middle class now' revolution of the Blair era created the need for the old working class to be superceded with a new immigrant class.
The working class left behind during this era resent immigrants for reducing their own social status, while the newly minted 'middle' class find there simply aren't enough middle class jobs to go round.
The end result is a fundamental disconnect between the perceived social status of the native British majority and an economy able to support their expectations. A lot of low-status jobs that nobody wants to do.
In other words, we haven't just built an economy that relies on immigration, we've built a society that relies on it. And that is far more dangerous.
I'd agree with a lot of your theory.
I think equal marriage was hugely relevant to this though - the imaginary social structure that a large proportion of British males subconsciously place themselves within had gay men as a chair to stand on. With equal marriage, that got kicked away.
The immigrants were equal in status (and often above them), the gays were equal (and more visible than ever before, in positions of power).
By ~2014, the low skilled WWC straight British male was severely economically and socially repressed.
RedUKIP/Brexit/Little-English nationalism was the opportunity to f*ck'em. The lashing out.
I'm a leaver but that sounds about practical at least till 2021/2 or so, which buys time to actually set up WTO infrastructure if we want, or far better do deals with whomever around the world (that would be a red line - the ability to do deals with USA/Canada/S Korea/Japan etc whilst we are doing a "Norway"). It puts us then on a stronger foot to insist of stricter border control in addition to those we could wangle as part of the EEA.
It also probably allays much of the budget issue, as by then the 27 will be in the next round of EU budget haggling without us, and allows time for everyone to cool down a tad. I wouldn't personally want EEA to be the destination but a stepping stone to Canada + and I'd be wary of everlasting stretching out of any deadline past the next election (hence the need for teeth in WTO preparations), but as a staging post that solves a lot of pressing issues - fine.
CopperSulphate appears to be uncaring of facts and reality. He referred to my "beloved EU" which I had told him I voted to leave, and then "our" ludicrous 2 year deadline. To complain about the deadline enshrined in a treaty we signed is like howling at the moon. Its 2 years. We know its 2 years. The campaign to leave knew it was 2 years. Isn't the reality that CS makes a petulant small child's tantrum of not getting their own way?
On EFTA I think they have opened the door as overtly as they can to our rejoining. The UK would lend sufficient weight to make EFTA a counterbalance to the EU, a free trade association not dragged down by the baggage of political and fiscal union but still a trade association. Which is why we have to be in it. This is a trading nation. We wanted free trade, Thatcher drove it through. Why would we want a return to the bad old days before the single market and if they were the good old days as suggested why did Thatcherites so vociferously champion the single market?
And then we have the simple practical reality. Even if WTO roles was a good option for us - and its not - we can't possibly set ourselves up to trade freely that way by March 2019. So it HAS to be EEA and that logically means rejoin EFTA. the Norway option. Touted by the leave lobby during the referendum campaign but now shouted down as "betrayal" as the goal posts are shifted.
And free movement? Simple. We impose the restrictions on free movement already open to us. Its a "win" as part of the transition to buy off the "I don't like these foreigners" brigade and it actually allows some change.
Yep. I had replied to CS's retort to another poster without having seen him earlier accuse you of being a Remainer.
On the meat of the matter I think the problem we have is that those considerable numbers of Leavers like you and I who see EFTA/EEA as the obvious route are now caught between the Fragistas who always saw immigration as the most important issue and the Nouveau Leavers like May who were not in favournof Brexit but now have to outdo the UKIP tendency when it comes to the sort of Brexit they think the public want. The sensible and practical EFTA option has been crushed in the middle.
The referendum vote must be implemented in accordance with its malign spirit. The campaign was fought by Leave on an anti-immigration basis. Any Leave voters who don't want that need a reality check.
Everything now hinges on Therea's speech in Florence. She needs to set out her vision as EEA Swiss Model Lite Plus Plus (or whatver it is) - i.e. the very antithesis of the Ultra Hard Brexit Boris has set his store by. Boris must be utterly humiliated and the rest of his Hard Leave cabal ground into the dust. I want to hear screams of 'Treachery' when Theresa makes her speech. I want to see Leavers attack and vilify her in the same way they did to Heath and Cameron. I want to see Farage fume. Only by doing this can Theresa hope to survive.
Erm, no.
Doing that, going against everything in the Lancaster House speech, not sorting out free movement, would see her challenged before she got home.
What Remainers deeply desire is not what the Tory party or the country want. Strange that, anyone would think they lost....
Just a reminder, the referendum result was really quite close. What 'the country' wants may be not be at all what the Tory Party (in its current hard Brexit stance) wants. If it was, the 'saboteurs' would have been 'crushed' at the last GE. Didn't quite happen like that, did it.
I'm a leaver but that sounds about practical at least till 2021/2 or so, which buys time to actually set up WTO infrastructure if we want, or far better do deals with whomever around the world (that would be a red line - the ability to do deals with USA/Canada/S Korea/Japan etc whilst we are doing a "Norway"). It puts us then on a stronger foot to insist of stricter border control in addition to those we could wangle as part of the EEA.
It also probably allays much of the budget issue, as by then the 27 will be in the next round of EU budget haggling without us, and allows time for everyone to cool down a tad. I wouldn't personally want EEA to be the destination but a stepping stone to Canada + and I'd be wary of everlasting stretching out of any deadline past the next election (hence the need for teeth in WTO preparations), but as a staging post that solves a lot of pressing issues - fine.
We can debate the longer term options all you like - we have to get past 2019 first. And from a simple practical perspective if we leave the single market we are fucked from day 1
The weird feature of the immigration ‘debate” (slanging match would be a better term) is that as immigration falls people such as farmers and hoteliers are complaining that they can’t get staff. It’s all right ‘all the Poles” or whatever doing people out of jobs, but the jobs they took, and are now vacataing, don’t seem to be being filled by the locals.
Or is that a ‘yet’?
Theory: A lot of it has to do with class.
Over the last twenty years or so, starting with the Blair era, we have moved decisively away from the upper/middle/working class of old to 'we're all middle class now' in attitude (if not in fact).
This has been fuelled by two things, 1) sending every kid off to uni to do a useless degree (I've got a degree in media studies, I should be working at the BBC, not behind a bar!) and 2) the creation of an 'immigrant class', jobs that, in the south east particularly, are almost exclusively done by immigrants (try finding a British person working in Pret, for example).
So even if we don't look down on immigrants individually, the ever class-obsessed Brits look down on them collectively as a 'lower class' doing lower status jobs which most native brits would now see as beneath them.
The 'we're all middle class now' revolution of the Blair era created the need for the old working class to be superceded with a new immigrant class.
The working class left behind during this era resent immigrants for reducing their own social status, while the newly minted 'middle' class find there simply aren't enough middle class jobs to go round.
The end result is a fundamental disconnect between the perceived social status of the native British majority and an economy able to support their expectations. A lot of low-status jobs that nobody wants to do.
In other words, we haven't just built an economy that relies on immigration, we've built a society that relies on it. And that is far more dangerous.
I'd agree with a lot of your theory.
I think equal marriage was hugely relevant to this though - the imaginary social structure that a large proportion of British males subconsciously place themselves within had gay men as a chair to stand on. With equal marriage, that got kicked away.
The immigrants were equal in status (and often above them), the gays were equal (and more visible than ever before, in positions of power).
By ~2014, the low skilled WWC straight British male was severely economically and socially repressed.
RedUKIP/Brexit/Little-English nationalism was the opportunity to f*ck'em. The lashing out.
Definitely an element of this. You see the same thing with America and Trump.
I think equal marriage was hugely relevant to this though - the imaginary social structure that a large proportion of British males subconsciously place themselves within had gay men as a chair to stand on. With equal marriage, that got kicked away.
The immigrants were equal in status (and often above them), the gays were equal (and visible in positions of power). By ~2014, the low skilled WWC straight British male was severely economically and socially repressed.
RedUKIP/Brexit/Little-English nationalism was the opportunity to f*ck'em. The lashing out.
52% of the population is not a few low skilled WWC straight males - its requires an awful lot more people than that.
CopperSulphate appears to be uncaring of facts and reality. He referred to my "beloved EU" which I had told him I voted to leave, and then "our" ludicrous 2 year deadline. To complain about the deadline enshrined in a treaty we signed is like howling at the moon. Its 2 years. We know its 2 years. The campaign to leave knew it was 2 years. Isn't the reality that CS makes a petulant small child's tantrum of not getting their own way?
Copper Sulphate (the salt, not the person) is mildly toxic and if ingested induces vomiting.
CopperSulphate appears to be uncaring of facts and reality. He referred to my "beloved EU" which I had told him I voted to leave, and then "our" ludicrous 2 year deadline. To complain about the deadline enshrined in a treaty we signed is like howling at the moon. Its 2 years. We know its 2 years. The campaign to leave knew it was 2 years. Isn't the reality that CS makes a petulant small child's tantrum of not getting their own way?
Copper Sulphate (the salt, not the person) is mildly toxic and if ingested induces vomiting.
Comments
Right that's it - I'm no longer joining the new party you're going to form. Sorry.
On a merrier note, Retail Sales rose by 1% in August, or 1.2% on the quarter.
None of which changes the basic legal position as I have already set out. Nor does it alter CopperSulphate's correct assertion that we are where we are now because of the Eurofanatics like you who tried to force us down a road the majority of the public were not wiling to travel.
And you can't even comprehend why you should take some of the blame.
It's completely laughable and pathetic.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sir-Edrics-Kingdom-Thaddeus-White-ebook/dp/B0757PMR7F
On a different point, I suspect it was in 1642 that the English were are obsessed by Sovereignty as they are to-day.
I don't think that was counted as a success.
18 babies were named Corbyn in 2016
https://twitter.com/NatashaC/status/910447741733568512
Were any girls named Khaleesi?
Instead of presenting it as a repatriation of powers (therefore demonstrating an opt-out of ever closer union, rather than muttering platitudes about it), presenting it as an emergency brake demonstrated
1) Immigration was out of control (you use an 'emergency' brake as a last resort, you only use it when something has gone badly wrong)
2) the use of the 'brake' analogy demostrated the temporary nature of the fix, it would be one foot on the brake then back on the gas soon after
3) Presenting it as a brake on benefits, not immigration, heavily implied that there could be no brake on immigration, further demonstrating the UK's impotence. Not to mention the requirement for EU approval for the UK to pull the brake in the first place.
It's why 'take back control' was such a powerful message. Time and time again the EU demonsrtated that neither the British citizen nor the British government was in control. For many people, this made leave the default option.
We've reached the end game after ~35 years of engineering the economy to drain wealth from non-property owners and not-yet property owners and handing it to nimbys, land hoarders and "NO DSS" BTL landlords.
Think of it as a kind of pain-free equity release for the ~75% of voters who aren't the ~25% tory client vote.
It'll be wildly popular, even the Daily Mail will support it.
Granted there was fallout and many died along the way, not least in Ireland (I assume you are Irish or living there?) which is to be regretted, but the alternative was to submit to a continental style absolutist regime, under a (to the English because Charles 1 was actually Scottish by birth) foreign ruler. Instead of that they rolled the constitutional dice.
If only I could think of a modern parallel.....
That is another reason why Hannan is a twat. He rode on the coattails of the anti-immigration vote while espousing a whole lot of bollocks on other elements, sovereignty, political project, etc which was just a smokescreen because he had the anti-foreigner vote in his back pocket.
Is it?
There's no problem with that, provided the rate isn't too high. But it's not a magic bullet, you can't simply magic up money from nowhere with a new tax. So an LVT could be a small supplement to other taxes, but it can't be a game-changer as @Pong seems to think it is. "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to procure the largest quantity of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing". There might be a few extra feathers pluckable with an LVT, or indeed with extra council-tax bands, but that's it.
Mr Johnson wrote the 4000 word article.
Mr Johnson allowed it to be published in a pro-Tory paper.
Mr Johnson has worked for newspapers and knew exactly how they would react.
Land values are pretty low, you'll be quids in.
Or is that a ‘yet’?
Edit: and
thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/unchecked-immigration-will-lead-to-economic-growth-warn-experts-2015022795782
The strangest thing about the immigration debate is how the media endlessly repeats the employer whinge of 'we can't get the staff' without adding 'at the wages being offered'.
EDIT: on reflection, it's probably explained by the fact that journalists personally benefit from the abundance of low cost labour.
I pose a question or two without bias to either side, looking for opinions on possible potential developments. The status quo is that we (including NI Scotland and Wales) are leaving the EU, if article 50 is completed - which I would suggest is odds on.
Why is it that you see problems, challenges and difficulties as insurmountable?
Why do you have so little faith in humanity?
Why do you think one size fits all equals harmony?
Have you ever thought outside your comfort zone?
Do you not see significant divergence between current EU members, some of whom are adjacent to each other?
Is the EU dysfunctional at its land borders with other non member states?
Do you not celebrate diversity as enhancing the richness of humanity, and see a tiny bit of that eroded by the EU?
https://youtu.be/akVL7QY0S8A
On EFTA I think they have opened the door as overtly as they can to our rejoining. The UK would lend sufficient weight to make EFTA a counterbalance to the EU, a free trade association not dragged down by the baggage of political and fiscal union but still a trade association. Which is why we have to be in it. This is a trading nation. We wanted free trade, Thatcher drove it through. Why would we want a return to the bad old days before the single market and if they were the good old days as suggested why did Thatcherites so vociferously champion the single market?
And then we have the simple practical reality. Even if WTO roles was a good option for us - and its not - we can't possibly set ourselves up to trade freely that way by March 2019. So it HAS to be EEA and that logically means rejoin EFTA. the Norway option. Touted by the leave lobby during the referendum campaign but now shouted down as "betrayal" as the goal posts are shifted.
And free movement? Simple. We impose the restrictions on free movement already open to us. Its a "win" as part of the transition to buy off the "I don't like these foreigners" brigade and it actually allows some change.
1. Announce that we have ALREADY signed an option to join EFTA, on either a permanent or a 5 year fixed term transitional basis, the option staying open until 31/12/2020.
2. Boris to be made Deputy PM in charge of Brexit and to chair all Brexit discussions at cabinet, with TM staying as PM for all other matters, providing an ability to focus on non Brexit issues.
3. Brexit negotiation to continue, with the aim of securing Brexiteers aims and with a much lower need for agreement. Prepare domestically for a hard Brexit.
4. There will be no transition deal with the EU itself, and we will not invoke our EFTA option before March 2020.
5. Expect a Tory leadership contest in March 2021.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will have a try before you buy Brexit.
A LVT is a game changer because it has excellent technical qualities in that it efficient, equitable, and difficult to evade.
It could raise lots of money if we wanted and/or it could replace a lot of other taxes.
Edit: just to add - I think property taxes raise something like $55bn in California...
On the meat of the matter I think the problem we have is that those considerable numbers of Leavers like you and I who see EFTA/EEA as the obvious route are now caught between the Fragistas who always saw immigration as the most important issue and the Nouveau Leavers like May who were not in favournof Brexit but now have to outdo the UKIP tendency when it comes to the sort of Brexit they think the public want. The sensible and practical EFTA option has been crushed in the middle.
Moving to this position completely undermines the case for leaving, which is, perhaps, why leavers are so opposed to it.
Johnson has merely found a way of saving face, by insinuating that he has forced May back from an EEA/EFTA position.
Over the last twenty years or so, starting with the Blair era, we have moved decisively away from the upper/middle/working class of old to 'we're all middle class now' in attitude (if not in fact).
This has been fuelled by two things, 1) sending every kid off to uni to do a useless degree (I've got a degree in media studies, I should be working at the BBC, not behind a bar!) and 2) the creation of an 'immigrant class', jobs that, in the south east particularly, are almost exclusively done by immigrants (try finding a British person working in Pret, for example).
So even if we don't look down on immigrants individually, the ever class-obsessed Brits look down on them collectively as a 'lower class' doing lower status jobs which most native brits would now see as beneath them.
The 'we're all middle class now' revolution of the Blair era created the need for the old working class to be superceded with a new immigrant class.
The working class left behind during this era resent immigrants for reducing their own social status, while the newly minted 'middle' class find there simply aren't enough middle class jobs to go round.
The end result is a fundamental disconnect between the perceived social status of the native British majority and an economy able to support their expectations. A lot of low-status jobs that nobody wants to do.
In other words, we haven't just built an economy that relies on immigration, we've built a society that relies on it. And that is far more dangerous.
Doing that, going against everything in the Lancaster House speech, not sorting out free movement, would see her challenged before she got home.
What Remainers deeply desire is not what the Tory party or the country want. Strange that, anyone would think they lost....
The referendum has toxified political discourse to the point that opinion is so polarised between leavers and remainers that they cannot work together to put this point of view forward. In consequence, the discourse is dominated at the moment by Hard Brexit and Hard Remain.
From a 21st century perspective we wouldn't really think it a bright idea to send our religious minorities to another country across the sea to dispossess the locals and set up home, though the self same process led to NI and the USA I guess both starting at about the same time, if with differing outcomes.
Had Charles won, history would be very different indeed. "I am the state" might've been an English phrase and the guillotine set up in London in the 1790's rather than Paris. We might not have the outlook we do on the world which leads many of us to look at the continent's way of doing things somewhat askance at times.
Who can tell?
And I do know what will happen. Because the people who actually do practical things know what will happen and are noisily telling anyone who will listen and isn't shouting traitor at them.
The EU aren't going to change their mind on enforcing the rules of the EU
We can have a trade agreement with the EU (via EFTA) or fall back to the WTO
We won't have the staff/systems in place for March 19 which means "WTO" would only be imposed by the EU as we aren't capable of imposing tariffs
The EU WILL impose their "external border no trade agreement" protocols which is physically check everything coming in. Which will effectively close down our border (cf eastern European checkpoints and remember it'll be the French doing it...)
Our trade will slow to a stop overnight. Which kills any manufacturer with a JIT european supply chain. Which empties the shelves of our supermarkets and closes restaurants. Which creates civil unrest inside a fortnight
Which makes the public angry. The people responsible will pay. That's the Tory Party - who will not survive the shitfest that is hard Brexit. And if Labour nutters want to keep trying for "no deal is better than the single market" that'll be us dead as well.
I wanted away from the EU for simple reasons. We aren't a participant in its direction of travel - the Euro, the forthcoming fiscal union, Schengen. And as they move forward that would expel us from the core anyway - the "two speed Europe" talked about in the past. So better to step off at a time of our choosing rather than theirs. But we have to trade. And if you want to sell products into a market you have to be compliant with its rules. So why leave the EEA?
As it is, I'd stay in the EU and even be forced to join the Euro and Schengen if need be - anything is better than the suicidal go splat off the cliff hard Brexit apocalyseofuck planned by BoJo et al.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/09/roger-bootle-a-post-brexit-britain-could-be-more-open-less-protectionist-and-more-competitive/
"If we don’t do that and run our affairs well, I’d like to think we would be a more competitive economy. We would be a more global economy and more outward facing. I think we could escape from what is holding us back. We could be more open, less protectionist and more competitive."
The vitriol aimed at Boris from all the remainers here has one basis - he beat you once and he has just done it again!
you need to get a life or understand irony
I think equal marriage was hugely relevant to this though - the imaginary social structure that a large proportion of British males subconsciously place themselves within had gay men as a chair to stand on. With equal marriage, that got kicked away.
The immigrants were equal in status (and often above them), the gays were equal (and more visible than ever before, in positions of power).
By ~2014, the low skilled WWC straight British male was severely economically and socially repressed.
RedUKIP/Brexit/Little-English nationalism was the opportunity to f*ck'em. The lashing out.
I'm a leaver but that sounds about practical at least till 2021/2 or so, which buys time to actually set up WTO infrastructure if we want, or far better do deals with whomever around the world (that would be a red line - the ability to do deals with USA/Canada/S Korea/Japan etc whilst we are doing a "Norway"). It puts us then on a stronger foot to insist of stricter border control in addition to those we could wangle as part of the EEA.
It also probably allays much of the budget issue, as by then the 27 will be in the next round of EU budget haggling without us, and allows time for everyone to cool down a tad. I wouldn't personally want EEA to be the destination but a stepping stone to Canada + and I'd be wary of everlasting stretching out of any deadline past the next election (hence the need for teeth in WTO preparations), but as a staging post that solves a lot of pressing issues - fine.
http://www.cbc.ca/1.4294708
“U.K. PM Theresa May, desperate for post-Brexit deals, plays a weak hand”
What 'the country' wants may be not be at all what the Tory Party (in its current hard Brexit stance) wants. If it was, the 'saboteurs' would have been 'crushed' at the last GE. Didn't quite happen like that, did it.
I just thought I'd mention that :-D