Just to put into context the UK has signed third party trade deals with 28 parties worth around £150-160bn in existing trade. Last year before Liz Truss took over it was basically zero. She's done a fantastic job.
No Deal now isn't anywhere as bad as it would have been last year.
We have a lot more continuity trade thanks to Truss, we have sorted the Irish border and we have prepared for No Deal with all the customs site at least at basic levels of construction.
It's almost just the EU breakdown to consider and many businesses (far from all) have prepared for that all along.
For clarity I'd still prefer a deal, but not at any price.
I'd have liked an extra year or two to figure out customs arrangements better and to bed in the existing agreements with Canada and maybe look to extend the six major agreements we have (Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Korea, Singapore) into services as well as formally apply and be accepted into the CPTPP from January 1st 2022/23 or whenever the transition period ended. The other suggestion I've seen is talking to Canada, Australia and New Zealand about customs pre-clearance/trusted trader as part of existing or future trade infrastructure similar to what we suggested to the EU and is being implemented for NI.
The flexibility the UK has outside of the EU wrt third party trade is actually much wider than even I had originally thought. Nations seem very interested in signing services based trade deals with the UK which is something you and I both said back in 2016 and was denied time and again by remainers.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
Earl of Castlemaine/Charles II Stuart?
Without the child requirement, I'd go with Louis Mountbatten.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
The problem is proving that the child was not theirs. The 1st and 3rd Dukes of York have been put forward - the 1st for his second son Richard of Conisborough (who pretty clearly wasn't his son) and the 3rd for his eldest, later King Edward IV. But none of the allegations against Edward IV can be stood up.
Claudius and Messalina spring to mind, of course. We could also perhaps mention Mr William O'Shea, most of whose children were fathered by Charles Parnell.
But surely the most famous of the lot would be Sir William Hamilton, husband of Emma Hamilton and therefore forced to pretend Nelson's daughter Horatia was his own.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
Just to put into context the UK has signed third party trade deals with 28 parties worth around £150-160bn in existing trade. Last year before Liz Truss took over it was basically zero. She's done a fantastic job.
No Deal now isn't anywhere as bad as it would have been last year.
We have a lot more continuity trade thanks to Truss, we have sorted the Irish border and we have prepared for No Deal with all the customs site at least at basic levels of construction.
It's almost just the EU breakdown to consider and many businesses (far from all) have prepared for that all along.
For clarity I'd still prefer a deal, but not at any price.
I'd have liked an extra year or two to figure out customs arrangements better and to bed in the existing agreements with Canada and maybe look to extend the six major agreements we have (Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Korea, Singapore) into services as well as formally apply and be accepted into the CPTPP from January 1st 2022/23 or whenever the transition period ended. The other suggestion I've seen is talking to Canada, Australia and New Zealand about customs pre-clearance/trusted trader as part of existing or future trade infrastructure similar to what we suggested to the EU and is being implemented for NI.
The flexibility the UK has outside of the EU wrt third party trade is actually much wider than even I had originally thought. Nations seem very interested in signing services based trade deals with the UK which is something you and I both said back in 2016 and was denied time and again by remainers.
Yes, agree with all of that. I'm not worried long-term. It's the next 6-12 months that will be rocky.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
Earl of Castlemaine/Charles II Stuart?
I'm thinking of the husband of Nelson's mistress, Lady Hamilton, but am not sure of the details. [Is anybody?]
The dilplomatic vulcanologist? Seems pretty clear, unless Lady E was doing the dirty on the sea-dog as well.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
The problem is proving that the child was not theirs. The 1st and 3rd Dukes of York have been put forward - the 1st for his second son Richard of Conisborough (who pretty clearly wasn't his son) and the 3rd for his eldest, later King Edward IV. But none of the allegations against Edward IV can be stood up.
Claudius and Messalina spring to mind, of course. We could also perhaps mention Mr William O'Shea, most of whose children were fathered by Charles Parnell.
But surely the most famous of the lot would be Sir William Hamilton, husband of Emma Hamilton and therefore forced to pretend Nelson's daughter Horatia was his own.
So we'll do our business elsewhere and they won't get the benefit of our services.
Their loss.
More likely is that UK events businesses and others that operate in services industries will open up in the single market and organise from there, so creating more opportunities for EU citizens and fewer for UK ones.
So we'll do our business elsewhere and they won't get the benefit of our services.
Their loss.
It's not as dramatic as that. We'll just be in the same automated system as US business people who get their temporary leave to conduct business in minutes. Unless the EU push this as another one of those "consequences of leaving" it's a bit of a nothing thing.
Sad to hear of the death of Paolo Rossi. He was a key part of what I still regard as the greatest game of football I have ever seen - the 1982 World Cup Quarter-Final between Italy and Brazil which the Italians won 3-2.
Sad to hear of the death of Paolo Rossi. He was a key part of what I still regard as the greatest game of football I have ever seen - the 1982 World Cup Quarter-Final between Italy and Brazil which the Italians won 3-2.
Very sad - huge personality and a great influence on Italian Football generally.
I'd have picked the same two teams in the 1970 final, but that was more a virtuoso performance by Brazil than a match. I'm biased though because any 'greatest game' has to have Pele playing.
Or that he lacks the ability to make a decision. Somebody hand him a 50p piece (it has a known decision making ability)
I purchased a Shakespeare decision coin at a Christmas market last year.
To be...
Not to be...
I bought a pencil of Shakespeare's once, but I still don't know what type it is.
It's 2B or not 2B.
Christmas Shakespeare quiz for you.
Which five plays do these represent?
6" 9" 12" Wet Dry
And here's one by George Bernard Shaw....
0 0 0 0 0
Googling won't help you.
6", 9" and 12" reminds me of Singles, EPs and LPs = so a short play, an extended play and a long play. Alas, I hated Shakespeare at school and so my knowledge is limited to the one play studied for O Level - Romeo and Juliet. I am not sure it is the right answer to any of those three.
I had the better part of 6 months off on full pay in 2018/19.
It was a bloody pain, there's only so much TV you can watch, all your mates are still working, and when you finally do go back to work, it's a shock to the body and brain for ages.
Just to put into context the UK has signed third party trade deals with 28 parties worth around £150-160bn in existing trade. Last year before Liz Truss took over it was basically zero. She's done a fantastic job.
Of course, it always helps to be compared to Liam Fox.
Yes, definitely. It just goes to show how useless he was. Hopefully the government are serious about the CPTPP. Someone at work suggested that the UK look into associate membership of NAFTA or whatever it's called these days as it might be less onerous than a direct US trade deal and would be compatible with having independent trade deals too.
The problem with NAFTA (USMCA) is that it also contains dynamic provisions*, including one rather mischievous one slipped in at the last minute by Canada regarding LGB rights.
* Most notably regarding intellectual property, but also some rather onerous ones regarding labour content in autmotive
So we'll do our business elsewhere and they won't get the benefit of our services.
Their loss.
It's not as dramatic as that. We'll just be in the same automated system as US business people who get their temporary leave to conduct business in minutes. Unless the EU push this as another one of those "consequences of leaving" it's a bit of a nothing thing.
We'll need some kind of deal for that. And the rights that US business people have to do business inside the EU are far fewer than the ones those employed in our service industries have enjoyed up to now. The easiest way around it is just to open an office in the EU and to employ EU citizens.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
Earl of Castlemaine/Charles II Stuart?
Ooh, good answer.
I'll give you a naughty tinker of an answer. Charles III Windsor.
So we'll do our business elsewhere and they won't get the benefit of our services.
Their loss.
More likely is that UK events businesses and others that operate in services industries will open up in the single market and organise from there, so creating more opportunities for EU citizens and fewer for UK ones.
Nah, people will just get the permits. We did it every year to go to E3 in California and our team in the US did it every year to attend Gamescom in Cologne. It's about 30 minutes of online forms for the admin assistant.
So we'll do our business elsewhere and they won't get the benefit of our services.
Their loss.
It's not as dramatic as that. We'll just be in the same automated system as US business people who get their temporary leave to conduct business in minutes. Unless the EU push this as another one of those "consequences of leaving" it's a bit of a nothing thing.
Far easier for companies just to move to the EU. Why wouldn't they? Plenty of options to choose from.
Or that he lacks the ability to make a decision. Somebody hand him a 50p piece (it has a known decision making ability)
I purchased a Shakespeare decision coin at a Christmas market last year.
To be...
Not to be...
I bought a pencil of Shakespeare's once, but I still don't know what type it is.
It's 2B or not 2B.
Christmas Shakespeare quiz for you.
Which five plays do these represent?
6" 9" 12" Wet Dry
And here's one by George Bernard Shaw....
0 0 0 0 0
Googling won't help you.
6", 9" and 12" reminds me of Singles, EPs and LPs = so a short play, an extended play and a long play. Alas, I hated Shakespeare at school and so my knowledge is limited to the one play studied for O Level - Romeo and Juliet. I am not sure it is the right answer to any of those three.
Sad to hear of the death of Paolo Rossi. He was a key part of what I still regard as the greatest game of football I have ever seen - the 1982 World Cup Quarter-Final between Italy and Brazil which the Italians won 3-2.
Very sad - huge personality and a great influence on Italian Football generally.
I'd have picked the same two teams in the 1970 final, but that was more a virtuoso performance by Brazil than a match. I'm biased though because any 'greatest game' has to have Pele playing.
I was sure it was a quarter final but Wikipedia tells me it wasn't. There was a second group stage - four groups with three teams in each group - winners advanced to the semis. England were in a group with West Germany and Spain and both matches were goalless. The Germans beat Spain 2-1 and advanced.
Italy and Brazil were in a group with the World Cup holders, Argentina. Both beat Argentina and so their match was the decider. Italy went on to beat Poland while West Germany beat France in a thriller. Italy won the final 3-1.
Or that he lacks the ability to make a decision. Somebody hand him a 50p piece (it has a known decision making ability)
I purchased a Shakespeare decision coin at a Christmas market last year.
To be...
Not to be...
I bought a pencil of Shakespeare's once, but I still don't know what type it is.
It's 2B or not 2B.
Christmas Shakespeare quiz for you.
Which five plays do these represent?
6" 9" 12" Wet Dry
And here's one by George Bernard Shaw....
0 0 0 0 0
Googling won't help you.
6", 9" and 12" reminds me of Singles, EPs and LPs = so a short play, an extended play and a long play. Alas, I hated Shakespeare at school and so my knowledge is limited to the one play studied for O Level - Romeo and Juliet. I am not sure it is the right answer to any of those three.
So we'll do our business elsewhere and they won't get the benefit of our services.
Their loss.
It's not as dramatic as that. We'll just be in the same automated system as US business people who get their temporary leave to conduct business in minutes. Unless the EU push this as another one of those "consequences of leaving" it's a bit of a nothing thing.
Far easier for companies just to move to the EU. Why wouldn't they? Plenty of options to choose from.
Far easier to move a company to the EU than fill out a form?
Or that he lacks the ability to make a decision. Somebody hand him a 50p piece (it has a known decision making ability)
I purchased a Shakespeare decision coin at a Christmas market last year.
To be...
Not to be...
I bought a pencil of Shakespeare's once, but I still don't know what type it is.
It's 2B or not 2B.
Christmas Shakespeare quiz for you.
Which five plays do these represent?
6" 9" 12" Wet Dry
And here's one by George Bernard Shaw....
0 0 0 0 0
Googling won't help you.
6", 9" and 12" reminds me of Singles, EPs and LPs = so a short play, an extended play and a long play. Alas, I hated Shakespeare at school and so my knowledge is limited to the one play studied for O Level - Romeo and Juliet. I am not sure it is the right answer to any of those three.
Or that he lacks the ability to make a decision. Somebody hand him a 50p piece (it has a known decision making ability)
I purchased a Shakespeare decision coin at a Christmas market last year.
To be...
Not to be...
I bought a pencil of Shakespeare's once, but I still don't know what type it is.
It's 2B or not 2B.
Christmas Shakespeare quiz for you.
Which five plays do these represent?
6" 9" 12" Wet Dry
And here's one by George Bernard Shaw....
0 0 0 0 0
Googling won't help you.
6", 9" and 12" reminds me of Singles, EPs and LPs = so a short play, an extended play and a long play. Alas, I hated Shakespeare at school and so my knowledge is limited to the one play studied for O Level - Romeo and Juliet. I am not sure it is the right answer to any of those three.
Far too intellectual, Tim.
Think gutter.
Length of penises?
Getting warm...but perhaps it's still too hard for you.
One does wonder why London isn't already in Tier 3. Seriously, if the pandemic has taught us anything it's that "move fast and break things" is better than "Move slowly and break things later".
@OnboardG1 regarding your comment on the last thread, I don't live in Wales.
Huh for some reason I thought you did. And it's not just the name. Well, maybe Hancock is finally acknowledging that the plague is spreading in school settings.
Speaking of which, hope you've survived unscathed thus far.
Just about. Don't know how given the safety regs are not even a joke, just a shambles.
Glad to hear it. Hope your Christmas break is restful at least. I'm still annoyed that the SNP didn't extend the Christmas holidays up here. It was a good idea and an extra week and a bit is going to do fuck all to affect education given how screwy this year has been.
It is part time enough already with out asking to get MP's holiday allocations. If only everybody could get half the year off.
Their new deal with Japan contains stricter commitments on state aid than what the EU are asking for. So why is that no big deal for sovereignty but yet signing something with less stringent measures not possible with the EU .
Their new deal with Japan contains stricter commitments on state aid than what the EU are asking for. So why is that no big deal for sovereignty but yet signing something with less stringent measures not possible with the EU .
Their new deal with Japan contains stricter commitments on state aid than what the EU are asking for. So why is that no big deal for sovereignty but yet signing something with less stringent measures not possible with the EU .
Who is the arbiter of it, and what is the process for invoking arbitration?
Just to put into context the UK has signed third party trade deals with 28 parties worth around £150-160bn in existing trade. Last year before Liz Truss took over it was basically zero. She's done a fantastic job.
No Deal now isn't anywhere as bad as it would have been last year.
We have a lot more continuity trade thanks to Truss, we have sorted the Irish border and we have prepared for No Deal with all the customs site at least at basic levels of construction.
It's almost just the EU breakdown to consider and many businesses (far from all) have prepared for that all along.
For clarity I'd still prefer a deal, but not at any price.
You are in cuckoo land, totally off your rocker. WE can sell cheese to Japan , if EU don't sell them any , whooopeee
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
Earl of Castlemaine/Charles II Stuart?
Ooh, good answer.
I'll give you a naughty tinker of an answer. Charles III Windsor.
In the same vein, Phil the Greek.
For legal purposes, you know, that Prince of a guy who runs the Kebab shop.
The two sides are simultaneously close and far apart. They are near to a zero-tariff, zero-quota deal. But they are still stuck on the same issues that they have been for months: fishing and the extent to which Britain adheres to certain EU rules (the so-called “level-playing field”). The British side is more pessimistic about the chances of resolving these differences.
The danger is that the remaining optimism on the European side comes from a belief that Johnson will climb down at the last minute. But this is a dangerous misreading of the situation. Johnson is under very little political pressure to do so domestically. I am told that “around the cabinet table there is a strong desire for a deal, but there is a willingness to do no-deal”. The sense that the EU hardened up their position late last week has strengthened the cabinet’s resolve. In parliament, Johnson has an 80-seat majority, his party behind him and a leader of the opposition who is visibly uncomfortable talking about Brexit, as this week’s PMQs showed.....
...It is, sometimes, assumed that the dinners and the ever-slipping deadlines are just theatre: that the two sides know they will do a deal, but both want to wait until the last moment. This is, alas, untrue. The prospects for a deal look worse than they have for some time. But the two sides need to step back and look at the big picture. They can let this descend into no-deal, poisoning relations between the EU and the UK, or they can make it the beginning of a new partnership based on reciprocity and mutual respect. When Johnson and von der Leyen speak on Sunday, they should do so in person and with an acute awareness of what is at stake.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
Earl of Castlemaine/Charles II Stuart?
Ooh, good answer.
I'll give you a naughty tinker of an answer. Charles III Windsor.
In the same vein, Phil the Greek.
Well now that is a naughty answer, go and stand in the corner!
I listened to Forsyth discussing Brexit with Katy Balls from the Spectator on her podcast. It was like listening to a couple of posh St Andrews students on a particularly boring date.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
It's still possible, maybe even likely, that BoZo is stupid enough to walk away, but Brexiteers have to ask themselves, if that is the play, what is he waiting for?
He has had several self-imposed deadlines, and missed them all.
Is he frit?
Boris, quite rightly, will hang on till the very last so that he can squeeze out all he can. He also knows that the more tense it gets, the more congratulations he'll receive in the ensuing orgasm of relief. Boris's Falklands moment is nigh - he just has to count the hours.
Yes.
And he will be General Galtieri.
No, he'll be The General Belgrano.
Interesting factoid I found out recently. The General Belgrano was, prior to purchase by Argentina, the USS Pheonix and survived Pearl Harbor. I'm sure all you sophisticates knew this already but it was news to me.
So it was originally an American, sold out to a foreign country and caused chaos...
Then plumbed new depths?
Ran into danger and got torpedoed by something it should have seen coming.
To be fair a submarine is one thing it shouldn't have seen coming.
Why? Surely it had sonar?
Since you're about, I need to pick your brain.
I'm trying to come up with the most famous/memorable cuckolded man in history.
The entry requirement for this is that the cuckolded chap has had to pretend a child really is his
So I'm thinking Robert Boothby/Harold MacMillan, but can you (and other PBers) come up with anyone better?
Anyone who suggests Saint Joseph is a naughty tinker, as I'm limiting this to real people.
Earl of Castlemaine/Charles II Stuart?
Ooh, good answer.
I'll give you a naughty tinker of an answer. Charles III Windsor.
In the same vein, Phil the Greek.
Well now that is a naughty answer, go and stand in the corner!
Just to put into context the UK has signed third party trade deals with 28 parties worth around £150-160bn in existing trade. Last year before Liz Truss took over it was basically zero. She's done a fantastic job.
Yes, she's done well.
Among others...
Gove and Truss have been the MVPs of this process. I don't like Truss (far too "deregulate everything" for me) but she hasn't done badly. Gove has done a genuinely good job with the NI protocol because, unlike his boss, he knows how fragile the union is. There was some chat he'd quite like to kill the entire Internal Market Bill to avoid handing the SNP yet another round of ammunition in the event of no deal.
The joke was an implication that she has done everyone else.
The joke is that anybody is stupid enough to think that Truss or Gove could ever do anything well, especially slimeball Gove.
I listened to Forsyth discussing Brexit with Katy Balls from the Spectator on her podcast. It was like listening to a couple of posh St Andrews students on a particularly boring date.
Jimmy Fosythe has always had a superior inside track of how sections of Cabinet and latterly downing st were thinking about things, given his personal relationships. I worry a little that his missus getting such a senior job in government will castrate him somewhat, as he can now hardly go on air or to print with something blurted out over breakfast, unless it's been knowingly disclosed.
I suspect that Service Engineers will be the ones really badly hit. Plus if they are bringing any spares with them they'll presumably need a Carnet. As a director of a small UK company in the 1980s, exporting computers to various European countries, I remember all that stuff with horror.
"The fundamental problem is that the two sides view the negotiations very differently. As one weary British official puts it: “They view us as a departing member state not as a country they are doing a trade deal with.”
The British view is that the withdrawal agreement dealt with the process of leaving and so this agreement should be about the future. But much of the EU’s thinking reflects a mindset that fails to appreciate that the UK was quite serious about leaving in the first place. For instance, the EU is keen that Britain doesn’t deliver what it regards as unfair state aid when the Covid recovery starts. But the EU itself has no plans to restrict itself in this way and thinks that not only its coronavirus recovery scheme but Commission and European Investment Bank funding in general should be exempt from subsidy rules. It is clearly not reciprocal for the EU to be able to exempt its 750 billion euro fund from the treaty’s subsidy rules when the UK’s post-Covid funding would be subject to them.
These double-standards would quickly pose problems in other areas. Imagine, for example, that the EU decides to fund an effort to develop a zero-emissions jet aeroplane. ‘Supranational’ subsidies for this project would not be caught in the current agreement, but if Johnson went ahead with his own “jet zero” he’d be expected to follow the treaty’s state-aid rules. This is not fair. The EU should make clear that for any EU-level funding that is exempt from state aid rules, a proportionate amount of UK funding would be.
The same problem can be seen in the biggest sticking point in the talks, the so-called ratchet clause. This is meant to address what happens if the EU tightens its regulations in an area and the UK does not follow suit. The EU wants the right to unilaterally impose tariffs in these circumstances. There would be no obligation to show that the UK’s different standards were distorting trade. The EU would simply be able to act. But the UK would not be able to hit back. The text proposed by the EU would block us from responding to measures that they thought were unfair or disproportionate with their tariffs.
It is not sustainable to have a system where the EU can act as judge and jury and then unilaterally disarm the UK to prevent it from taking countermeasures.
There is a potential solution to this problem. The EU could still have the right to respond if it increased regulations and the UK didn’t follow. It would, though, not be able to do this automatically. Rather, it would have to go to arbitration and show that the different standards were having a material effect. This would deal with the EU’s medium-term concern about the UK trying to undercut it while maintaining zero tariff, zero quota access to its market. But it would also reassure the British side that it could not be subject to capricious actions by Brussels every time the EU introduced a relatively minor change.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
Yes, Brexit has been the greatest strengthening measure of the EU in its history.
Just to put into context the UK has signed third party trade deals with 28 parties worth around £150-160bn in existing trade. Last year before Liz Truss took over it was basically zero. She's done a fantastic job.
No Deal now isn't anywhere as bad as it would have been last year.
We have a lot more continuity trade thanks to Truss, we have sorted the Irish border and we have prepared for No Deal with all the customs site at least at basic levels of construction.
It's almost just the EU breakdown to consider and many businesses (far from all) have prepared for that all along.
For clarity I'd still prefer a deal, but not at any price.
I'd have liked an extra year or two to figure out customs arrangements better and to bed in the existing agreements with Canada and maybe look to extend the six major agreements we have (Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Korea, Singapore) into services as well as formally apply and be accepted into the CPTPP from January 1st 2022/23 or whenever the transition period ended. The other suggestion I've seen is talking to Canada, Australia and New Zealand about customs pre-clearance/trusted trader as part of existing or future trade infrastructure similar to what we suggested to the EU and is being implemented for NI.
The flexibility the UK has outside of the EU wrt third party trade is actually much wider than even I had originally thought. Nations seem very interested in signing services based trade deals with the UK which is something you and I both said back in 2016 and was denied time and again by remainers.
Yes, agree with all of that. I'm not worried long-term. It's the next 6-12 months that will be rocky.
Regardless of the outcome of talks wit h the EU, I think the woeful state of preparation by this government for a No Deal outcome has been a colossal failure of government.
This isn’t something that can be blamed on 'Remainers' or 'Leavers' or any other group. This government has had a massive majority for well over a year & appear to have failed utterly. We have a part finished lorry park in Kent that was started far too late, customs systems that /might/ exist by next March, but no guarantees. And so on and on.
None of this was necessary. We could have been prepared & we are not & the fault for that lies entirely on the shoulders of this government.
Just to put into context the UK has signed third party trade deals with 28 parties worth around £150-160bn in existing trade. Last year before Liz Truss took over it was basically zero. She's done a fantastic job.
No Deal now isn't anywhere as bad as it would have been last year.
We have a lot more continuity trade thanks to Truss, we have sorted the Irish border and we have prepared for No Deal with all the customs site at least at basic levels of construction.
It's almost just the EU breakdown to consider and many businesses (far from all) have prepared for that all along.
For clarity I'd still prefer a deal, but not at any price.
You are in cuckoo land, totally off your rocker. WE can sell cheese to Japan , if EU don't sell them any , whooopeee
(2) "Fish is the other great sticking point. The issue has become totemic on both sides of the Channel — and the importance of fishing in Scotland has raised its salience given the elections there next year and mounting concern in Whitehall about the Union. But fixes should be able to be found. The UK wants exclusive right to the fishing up to 12 miles off its coast. This will hurt boats from France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland which have traditionally fished in these waters. But given that in 2015 EU fishermen caught around £17 million worth of fish in the six to 12 mile zone, it should be possible to compensate them in cash terms and via allowing them more rights elsewhere."
Now what was I just saying about a month not being long enough....and we are going to go balls to the wall with the Christmas hall pass....
Yeah if they wanted to do the Christmas thing they needed to keep the lockdown in play until Dec 23rd. It’s another mistake in a litany of mistakes. Meanwhile Scotland’s numbers seem to be falling less dramatically but are still coming down (Zoe shows it in a gentle decline). I suspect that might be due to the L4 restrictions being in place across half the population so we’ll see what happens when Glasgow comes out into T3 on Friday.
It will be interesting. Our local authority just scraped into tier 3. We were slightly surprised we weren't in tier 4. Our numbers reduced gradually until last week, since when they have gradually increased. However the tier 4 areas have reduced faster, and many are now lower than us (not helped by visitors from tier 4 areas).
If you're on the West Coast, as an earlier post implied, would that not be connected to the outbreak in Faslane?
Faslane is a different local authority area, and too far for much commuting.
So we'll do our business elsewhere and they won't get the benefit of our services.
Their loss.
More likely is that UK events businesses and others that operate in services industries will open up in the single market and organise from there, so creating more opportunities for EU citizens and fewer for UK ones.
Nah, people will just get the permits. We did it every year to go to E3 in California and our team in the US did it every year to attend Gamescom in Cologne. It's about 30 minutes of online forms for the admin assistant.
That's attendees. I am thinking about the event organisers. We're likely to open an office in the single market. I doubt we're alone. I agree that most UK delegates will just swallow the extra cost of going to events as they won't have much choice. There'll probably be a tax write-off in any case.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
Yes, Brexit has been the greatest strengthening measure of the EU in its history.
That's the great dark irony of Brexit, Brexiteers wanted to blow up the EU but it is more likely they'll end up blowing up the UK.
The two sides are simultaneously close and far apart. They are near to a zero-tariff, zero-quota deal. But they are still stuck on the same issues that they have been for months: fishing and the extent to which Britain adheres to certain EU rules (the so-called “level-playing field”). The British side is more pessimistic about the chances of resolving these differences.
The danger is that the remaining optimism on the European side comes from a belief that Johnson will climb down at the last minute. But this is a dangerous misreading of the situation. Johnson is under very little political pressure to do so domestically. I am told that “around the cabinet table there is a strong desire for a deal, but there is a willingness to do no-deal”. The sense that the EU hardened up their position late last week has strengthened the cabinet’s resolve. In parliament, Johnson has an 80-seat majority, his party behind him and a leader of the opposition who is visibly uncomfortable talking about Brexit, as this week’s PMQs showed.....
...It is, sometimes, assumed that the dinners and the ever-slipping deadlines are just theatre: that the two sides know they will do a deal, but both want to wait until the last moment. This is, alas, untrue. The prospects for a deal look worse than they have for some time. But the two sides need to step back and look at the big picture. They can let this descend into no-deal, poisoning relations between the EU and the UK, or they can make it the beginning of a new partnership based on reciprocity and mutual respect. When Johnson and von der Leyen speak on Sunday, they should do so in person and with an acute awareness of what is at stake.
The important point being that the EU, believing that no deal is so horrible, seems to not notice that however obvious that is, Boris doesn't have the same political pressure on him as May. That doesn't mean the EU should or could just bow to any British demands, plenty will be unreasonable, but it does seem to me to make the ostentatious emphasis on the horribleness of Brexit as a concept that people love to make somewhat pointless - they make people feel better, but it doesn't matter if that is right, the EU need Boris to move to avoid needless trouble (since no deal is bad for everyone), and simply saying how horrible Brexit is doesn't induce him to move, and that in the EU Boris will shoulder the blame for any downsides doesn't mean the downsides should be welcomed.
No one else is exiting the EU for a generation at least, the process has been so bloody arduous, and they have made the point that any Brexit will be terrible for Britain even with a deal, so they surely have plenty of ability to make minor moves on this without undermining their position.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
So Remainers are on the same side as the fascists. Glad we've cleared that one up.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
So Remainers are on the same side as the fascists. Glad we've cleared that one up.
No, Leavers like you were on the same side as the fascists, fascists like Marien Le Pen urged Brits to vote Leave back in 2016.
Then the world saw what leaving the EU actually means.
"The fundamental problem is that the two sides view the negotiations very differently. As one weary British official puts it: “They view us as a departing member state not as a country they are doing a trade deal with.”
The British view is that the withdrawal agreement dealt with the process of leaving and so this agreement should be about the future. But much of the EU’s thinking reflects a mindset that fails to appreciate that the UK was quite serious about leaving in the first place. For instance, the EU is keen that Britain doesn’t deliver what it regards as unfair state aid when the Covid recovery starts. But the EU itself has no plans to restrict itself in this way and thinks that not only its coronavirus recovery scheme but Commission and European Investment Bank funding in general should be exempt from subsidy rules. It is clearly not reciprocal for the EU to be able to exempt its 750 billion euro fund from the treaty’s subsidy rules when the UK’s post-Covid funding would be subject to them.
These double-standards would quickly pose problems in other areas. Imagine, for example, that the EU decides to fund an effort to develop a zero-emissions jet aeroplane. ‘Supranational’ subsidies for this project would not be caught in the current agreement, but if Johnson went ahead with his own “jet zero” he’d be expected to follow the treaty’s state-aid rules. This is not fair. The EU should make clear that for any EU-level funding that is exempt from state aid rules, a proportionate amount of UK funding would be.
The same problem can be seen in the biggest sticking point in the talks, the so-called ratchet clause. This is meant to address what happens if the EU tightens its regulations in an area and the UK does not follow suit. The EU wants the right to unilaterally impose tariffs in these circumstances. There would be no obligation to show that the UK’s different standards were distorting trade. The EU would simply be able to act. But the UK would not be able to hit back. The text proposed by the EU would block us from responding to measures that they thought were unfair or disproportionate with their tariffs.
It is not sustainable to have a system where the EU can act as judge and jury and then unilaterally disarm the UK to prevent it from taking countermeasures.
There is a potential solution to this problem. The EU could still have the right to respond if it increased regulations and the UK didn’t follow. It would, though, not be able to do this automatically. Rather, it would have to go to arbitration and show that the different standards were having a material effect. This would deal with the EU’s medium-term concern about the UK trying to undercut it while maintaining zero tariff, zero quota access to its market. But it would also reassure the British side that it could not be subject to capricious actions by Brussels every time the EU introduced a relatively minor change.
."
Reads like a story written in No 10 and sent to the husband of the Press Secretary. Which worries me, as it's not a message to EU negotiators - these points will have been made ad nauseam in the room - but a message to a key section of the Johnson voting coalition. First time I've thought this isn't a bluff and they really are now laying the ground for No Deal.
Have to say I'm more concerned whether London moves into Tier 3 than I am with a Brexit No-Deal. The comments from The Times suggest the problem are, as they always have been, cultural rather than economic or practical.
The EU see the LPF in terms of competition, the UK in terms of sovereignty yet the fundamental seems to be the old "cake" question - we want a zero-quota zero-tariff Deal with the EU but at the same time want the right to adhere to our own standards. I get that but the question then becomes the trade off - free trade or sovereignty?
From the EU side, it looks like we want it all (and we want it now as Mr Mercury used to suggest) and we want to be in the club but not follow any of the rules.
I presume industry has figured out the impact of tariffs and obviously they cut both ways. It may well be other markets in which we can still trade freely will pick up some of the slack.
This was inevitable on so many levels - it cuts to the nub of the issue we have always had with Europe. To be a part of Europe but apart from Europe would seem to be the motto du jour.
Have to say I'm more concerned whether London moves into Tier 3 than I am with a Brexit No-Deal. The comments from The Times suggest the problem are, as they always have been, cultural rather than economic or practical.
The EU see the LPF in terms of competition, the UK in terms of sovereignty yet the fundamental seems to be the old "cake" question - we want a zero-quota zero-tariff Deal with the EU but at the same time want the right to adhere to our own standards. I get that but the question then becomes the trade off - free trade or sovereignty?
From the EU side, it looks like we want it all (and we want it now as Mr Mercury used to suggest) and we want to be in the club but not follow any of the rules.
I presume industry has figured out the impact of tariffs and obviously they cut both ways. It may well be other markets in which we can still trade freely will pick up some of the slack.
This was inevitable on so many levels - it cuts to the nub of the issue we have always had with Europe. To be a part of Europe but apart from Europe would seem to be the motto du jour.
Hello Stodge
It does appear almost nailed on that London will go into Tier 3 from Sat 19 Dec, announcement 16 Dec. Also Essex.
On Sunday we were told that the negotiators had tun out of room and it would need some political movement to continue. Yet they continue. Last night we were told that Sunday was the effective deadline but this evening we are also told that "we’ve got to keep going, and we’ll go the extra mile - and we will". Tonight we are also told that No Deal would "not be a bad thing". But Johnson is nevertheless offering to go to "wherever " (the Moon?) to get a deal - something no one would offer simply to avoid something that is "not a bad thing".
Employment lawyers send and receive hundreds of letters every day that threaten injunctions against former employees for breach of confidentiality, non-compete clauses etc. They rarely back them up because injunctions are expensive, hard to get, and the adverse costs risks are enormous. If you get a second letter making a threat of an injunction you know the threat is bullshit - if it were serious they would have just pulled the trigger - the second missive is just to please the client. Third, fourth, fifth such letters are just ignored. This shite reminds me of that.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
Yes, Brexit has been the greatest strengthening measure of the EU in its history.
That's the great dark irony of Brexit, Brexiteers wanted to blow up the EU but it is more likely they'll end up blowing up the UK.
The Brexiters were desperate for the EU to collapse , and hoped the UK leaving would be a domino effect so as to validate their lunatic project .
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
So Remainers are on the same side as the fascists. Glad we've cleared that one up.
No, Leavers like you were on the same side as the fascists, fascists like Marien Le Pen urged Brits to vote Leave back in 2016.
Then the world saw what leaving the EU actually means.
Just imagine how hard it would be to leave in ten or twenty years time.
This is an important survey with regards to the post No Deal blame game. It all very well saying that the collapse of the talks was the EU's fault but public opinion appears to indicate that if the focus is shifted onto a failure to prepare for the consequences of that eventuality, then Johnson carries the can.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
So Remainers are on the same side as the fascists. Glad we've cleared that one up.
No, Leavers like you were on the same side as the fascists, fascists like Marien Le Pen urged Brits to vote Leave back in 2016.
Then the world saw what leaving the EU actually means.
Just imagine how hard it would be to leave in ten or twenty years time.
I'm with what Gove said privately, if the public deem Brexit a mistake they'll eventually overturn the 2016 decision.
The notion that the masses will rally behind No Deal is preposterous - like thinking they'd have rallied behind Black Wednesday. Boris knows this. He also knows that a deal will be his Falklands moment. That's why the outcome isn't really in doubt.
I hate being overly pedantic, particularly about tweets, but why does he need etc at the end of the tweet after saying his little spiel about not limited too at the beginning.
I know this is probably not that important in the grand scheme of things
Have to say I'm more concerned whether London moves into Tier 3 than I am with a Brexit No-Deal. The comments from The Times suggest the problem are, as they always have been, cultural rather than economic or practical.
The EU see the LPF in terms of competition, the UK in terms of sovereignty yet the fundamental seems to be the old "cake" question - we want a zero-quota zero-tariff Deal with the EU but at the same time want the right to adhere to our own standards. I get that but the question then becomes the trade off - free trade or sovereignty?
From the EU side, it looks like we want it all (and we want it now as Mr Mercury used to suggest) and we want to be in the club but not follow any of the rules.
I presume industry has figured out the impact of tariffs and obviously they cut both ways. It may well be other markets in which we can still trade freely will pick up some of the slack.
This was inevitable on so many levels - it cuts to the nub of the issue we have always had with Europe. To be a part of Europe but apart from Europe would seem to be the motto du jour.
Hello Stodge
It does appear almost nailed on that London will go into Tier 3 from Sat 19 Dec, announcement 16 Dec. Also Essex.
What is ridiculous is Hancock sitting with his thumb up his arse for another week instead of acting now.
If your mind needed refreshing on what the “Australian option” actually means, we’ve got you.
Back in October, the Guardian’s Brussels bureau chief Daniel Boffey wrote:
Downing Street started using the term at the beginning of the year as a more palatable shorthand for a no-deal. The EU does not have a free-trade deal with Australia, although they are in negotiations. The two sides operate mainly on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, with huge tariffs on imports and exports.
It would be more accurate to describe the outcome that would be secured by a no-deal as an Afghanistan-style arrangement, given the lack of formal cooperation in that trading relationship. This is because the EU does have a few agreements in place with Australia that it would not have with the UK in the event of a failure of the trade and security negotiations. These include an agreement on the transfer of EU passenger name records to Australian border authorities to help combat crime and terrorism and an agreement on the mutual recognition of conformity assessments, so that a product tested to EU standards in Australia is regarded as compliant, eliminating the need for duplicative testing when it is imported.
So what marvelous things will the government do on 2/1 with their new found sovereignty? What will change that makes people see the benefit of no deal departure? Who will be sliding off to the bank with their sovereignty to bank? I still don’t get any of this as it does nothing to advance the national well being.
"The fundamental problem is that the two sides view the negotiations very differently. As one weary British official puts it: “They view us as a departing member state not as a country they are doing a trade deal with.”
The British view is that the withdrawal agreement dealt with the process of leaving and so this agreement should be about the future. But much of the EU’s thinking reflects a mindset that fails to appreciate that the UK was quite serious about leaving in the first place. For instance, the EU is keen that Britain doesn’t deliver what it regards as unfair state aid when the Covid recovery starts. But the EU itself has no plans to restrict itself in this way and thinks that not only its coronavirus recovery scheme but Commission and European Investment Bank funding in general should be exempt from subsidy rules. It is clearly not reciprocal for the EU to be able to exempt its 750 billion euro fund from the treaty’s subsidy rules when the UK’s post-Covid funding would be subject to them.
These double-standards would quickly pose problems in other areas. Imagine, for example, that the EU decides to fund an effort to develop a zero-emissions jet aeroplane. ‘Supranational’ subsidies for this project would not be caught in the current agreement, but if Johnson went ahead with his own “jet zero” he’d be expected to follow the treaty’s state-aid rules. This is not fair. The EU should make clear that for any EU-level funding that is exempt from state aid rules, a proportionate amount of UK funding would be.
The same problem can be seen in the biggest sticking point in the talks, the so-called ratchet clause. This is meant to address what happens if the EU tightens its regulations in an area and the UK does not follow suit. The EU wants the right to unilaterally impose tariffs in these circumstances. There would be no obligation to show that the UK’s different standards were distorting trade. The EU would simply be able to act. But the UK would not be able to hit back. The text proposed by the EU would block us from responding to measures that they thought were unfair or disproportionate with their tariffs.
It is not sustainable to have a system where the EU can act as judge and jury and then unilaterally disarm the UK to prevent it from taking countermeasures.
There is a potential solution to this problem. The EU could still have the right to respond if it increased regulations and the UK didn’t follow. It would, though, not be able to do this automatically. Rather, it would have to go to arbitration and show that the different standards were having a material effect. This would deal with the EU’s medium-term concern about the UK trying to undercut it while maintaining zero tariff, zero quota access to its market. But it would also reassure the British side that it could not be subject to capricious actions by Brussels every time the EU introduced a relatively minor change.
."
Reads like a story written in No 10 and sent to the husband of the Press Secretary. Which worries me, as it's not a message to EU negotiators - these points will have been made ad nauseam in the room - but a message to a key section of the Johnson voting coalition. First time I've thought this isn't a bluff and they really are now laying the ground for No Deal.
"The fundamental problem is that the two sides view the negotiations very differently. As one weary British official puts it: “They view us as a departing member state not as a country they are doing a trade deal with.”
The British view is that the withdrawal agreement dealt with the process of leaving and so this agreement should be about the future. But much of the EU’s thinking reflects a mindset that fails to appreciate that the UK was quite serious about leaving in the first place. For instance, the EU is keen that Britain doesn’t deliver what it regards as unfair state aid when the Covid recovery starts. But the EU itself has no plans to restrict itself in this way and thinks that not only its coronavirus recovery scheme but Commission and European Investment Bank funding in general should be exempt from subsidy rules. It is clearly not reciprocal for the EU to be able to exempt its 750 billion euro fund from the treaty’s subsidy rules when the UK’s post-Covid funding would be subject to them.
These double-standards would quickly pose problems in other areas. Imagine, for example, that the EU decides to fund an effort to develop a zero-emissions jet aeroplane. ‘Supranational’ subsidies for this project would not be caught in the current agreement, but if Johnson went ahead with his own “jet zero” he’d be expected to follow the treaty’s state-aid rules. This is not fair. The EU should make clear that for any EU-level funding that is exempt from state aid rules, a proportionate amount of UK funding would be.
The same problem can be seen in the biggest sticking point in the talks, the so-called ratchet clause. This is meant to address what happens if the EU tightens its regulations in an area and the UK does not follow suit. The EU wants the right to unilaterally impose tariffs in these circumstances. There would be no obligation to show that the UK’s different standards were distorting trade. The EU would simply be able to act. But the UK would not be able to hit back. The text proposed by the EU would block us from responding to measures that they thought were unfair or disproportionate with their tariffs.
It is not sustainable to have a system where the EU can act as judge and jury and then unilaterally disarm the UK to prevent it from taking countermeasures.
There is a potential solution to this problem. The EU could still have the right to respond if it increased regulations and the UK didn’t follow. It would, though, not be able to do this automatically. Rather, it would have to go to arbitration and show that the different standards were having a material effect. This would deal with the EU’s medium-term concern about the UK trying to undercut it while maintaining zero tariff, zero quota access to its market. But it would also reassure the British side that it could not be subject to capricious actions by Brussels every time the EU introduced a relatively minor change.
."
Reads like a story written in No 10 and sent to the husband of the Press Secretary. Which worries me, as it's not a message to EU negotiators - these points will have been made ad nauseam in the room - but a message to a key section of the Johnson voting coalition. First time I've thought this isn't a bluff and they really are now laying the ground for No Deal.
Boris's helpers (we're probably talking Carrie here) are well aware that Boris is known for being a bit of a slacker and homework dodger - they don't want it to look like he's signed up to anything without fully understanding it. So all this 'Boris has mastered his brief and has explained it to the Cabinet' is just part of that narrative. They want Boris's deal to appear robust, bullet proof and well thought out - i.e. not a typical Boris cobbled-together, at-the-last-minute job.
So what marvelous things will the government do on 2/1 with their new found sovereignty? What will change that makes people see the benefit of no deal departure? Who will be sliding off to the bank with their sovereignty to bank? I still don’t get any of this as it does nothing to advance the national well being.
This is an important survey with regards to the post No Deal blame game. It all very well saying that the collapse of the talks was the EU's fault but public opinion appears to indicate that if the focus is shifted onto a failure to prepare for the consequences of that eventuality, then Johnson carries the can.
Johnson lied to the British people about a deal and it is there for all to see. If it turns out he has also lied about us prospering mightily in the event of a no deal he is going to have a problem.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
Yes, Brexit has been the greatest strengthening measure of the EU in its history.
That's the great dark irony of Brexit, Brexiteers wanted to blow up the EU but it is more likely they'll end up blowing up the UK.
The Brexiters were desperate for the EU to collapse , and hoped the UK leaving would be a domino effect so as to validate their lunatic project .
I do wish liberation for all of the people of Europe.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
So Remainers are on the same side as the fascists. Glad we've cleared that one up.
No, Leavers like you were on the same side as the fascists, fascists like Marien Le Pen urged Brits to vote Leave back in 2016.
Then the world saw what leaving the EU actually means.
If it has become impossible to leave the EU then we got out just in time.
Or that he lacks the ability to make a decision. Somebody hand him a 50p piece (it has a known decision making ability)
I purchased a Shakespeare decision coin at a Christmas market last year.
To be...
Not to be...
I bought a pencil of Shakespeare's once, but I still don't know what type it is.
It's 2B or not 2B.
Christmas Shakespeare quiz for you.
Which five plays do these represent?
6" 9" 12" Wet Dry
And here's one by George Bernard Shaw....
0 0 0 0 0
Googling won't help you.
6" AYLI 9" AMND 12" 2GOV
No, but you are on the right lines.
Perhaps I should assist by telling you that AYLI is the right answer to the second one.
In which case 6" =MAAN.
Correct. The others should be easy now.
I have a sinking feeling that 12" may be The Taming of the Shrew. I hope I'm wrong.
Sadly, your mind has slumped to the correct level.
Now, we are still waiting for correct answers to Wet and Dry, and of course the GBS play. It is equally smutty, but requires a touch of lateral thinking. For convenience I repeat the question.
This is an important survey with regards to the post No Deal blame game. It all very well saying that the collapse of the talks was the EU's fault but public opinion appears to indicate that if the focus is shifted onto a failure to prepare for the consequences of that eventuality, then Johnson carries the can.
Johnson lied to the British people about a deal and it is there for all to see. If it turns out he has also lied about us prospering mightily in the event of a no deal he is going to have a problem.
Truth is he can’t be arsed to do the work that would be involved in getting a deal.
So what marvelous things will the government do on 2/1 with their new found sovereignty? What will change that makes people see the benefit of no deal departure? Who will be sliding off to the bank with their sovereignty to bank? I still don’t get any of this as it does nothing to advance the national well being.
So what marvelous things will the government do on 2/1 with their new found sovereignty? What will change that makes people see the benefit of no deal departure? Who will be sliding off to the bank with their sovereignty to bank? I still don’t get any of this as it does nothing to advance the national well being.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
So Remainers are on the same side as the fascists. Glad we've cleared that one up.
No, Leavers like you were on the same side as the fascists, fascists like Marien Le Pen urged Brits to vote Leave back in 2016.
Then the world saw what leaving the EU actually means.
If it has become impossible to leave the EU then we got out just in time.
No, leaving the EU is possible at any time, as we've proved.
Leaving the EU but retaining all the benefits of the EU without any costs, as espoused by the Vote Leave, Marine Le Pen, and others is what has been proven to be demonstrable bollocks.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
So Remainers are on the same side as the fascists. Glad we've cleared that one up.
No, Leavers like you were on the same side as the fascists, fascists like Marien Le Pen urged Brits to vote Leave back in 2016.
Then the world saw what leaving the EU actually means.
If it has become impossible to leave the EU then we got out just in time.
How easy would it be to leave the WTO and the UN and maintain our international position? Almost impossible, so does that mean there is an urgent need to leave them?
The notion that the masses will rally behind No Deal is preposterous - like thinking they'd have rallied behind Black Wednesday. Boris knows this. He also knows that a deal will be his Falklands moment. That's why the outcome isn't really in doubt.
I hate being overly pedantic, particularly about tweets, but why does he need etc at the end of the tweet after saying his little spiel about not limited too at the beginning.
I know this is probably not that important in the grand scheme of things
And, when you say a set 'includes' a list of things, the very sense of the word means you're not claiming to exhaustively list the content, so 'not limited too' is also superfluous.
"The fundamental problem is that the two sides view the negotiations very differently. As one weary British official puts it: “They view us as a departing member state not as a country they are doing a trade deal with.”
The British view is that the withdrawal agreement dealt with the process of leaving and so this agreement should be about the future. But much of the EU’s thinking reflects a mindset that fails to appreciate that the UK was quite serious about leaving in the first place. For instance, the EU is keen that Britain doesn’t deliver what it regards as unfair state aid when the Covid recovery starts. But the EU itself has no plans to restrict itself in this way and thinks that not only its coronavirus recovery scheme but Commission and European Investment Bank funding in general should be exempt from subsidy rules. It is clearly not reciprocal for the EU to be able to exempt its 750 billion euro fund from the treaty’s subsidy rules when the UK’s post-Covid funding would be subject to them.
These double-standards would quickly pose problems in other areas. Imagine, for example, that the EU decides to fund an effort to develop a zero-emissions jet aeroplane. ‘Supranational’ subsidies for this project would not be caught in the current agreement, but if Johnson went ahead with his own “jet zero” he’d be expected to follow the treaty’s state-aid rules. This is not fair. The EU should make clear that for any EU-level funding that is exempt from state aid rules, a proportionate amount of UK funding would be.
The same problem can be seen in the biggest sticking point in the talks, the so-called ratchet clause. This is meant to address what happens if the EU tightens its regulations in an area and the UK does not follow suit. The EU wants the right to unilaterally impose tariffs in these circumstances. There would be no obligation to show that the UK’s different standards were distorting trade. The EU would simply be able to act. But the UK would not be able to hit back. The text proposed by the EU would block us from responding to measures that they thought were unfair or disproportionate with their tariffs.
It is not sustainable to have a system where the EU can act as judge and jury and then unilaterally disarm the UK to prevent it from taking countermeasures.
There is a potential solution to this problem. The EU could still have the right to respond if it increased regulations and the UK didn’t follow. It would, though, not be able to do this automatically. Rather, it would have to go to arbitration and show that the different standards were having a material effect. This would deal with the EU’s medium-term concern about the UK trying to undercut it while maintaining zero tariff, zero quota access to its market. But it would also reassure the British side that it could not be subject to capricious actions by Brussels every time the EU introduced a relatively minor change.
."
Reads like a story written in No 10 and sent to the husband of the Press Secretary. Which worries me, as it's not a message to EU negotiators - these points will have been made ad nauseam in the room - but a message to a key section of the Johnson voting coalition. First time I've thought this isn't a bluff and they really are now laying the ground for No Deal.
It's a bit late to lay the ground for No Deal to people who were not expecting it i.e most people.
On a positive note, a no deal Brexit is going to push up the value of UK companies that offer their services - or a large part of them - online. That applies to us, ex-our physical events business and that is easy to relocate.
Though even then MPs can't have been that keen on the banning. The guy moving it noted not many Members were present at the time it was introduced on Christmas day, likely as they were observing the day. Colonel Mathews. The House is thin; much, I believe, occasioned by observation of this day. I have a short Bill to prevent the superstition for the future. I desire it to be read.
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
So Remainers are on the same side as the fascists. Glad we've cleared that one up.
No, Leavers like you were on the same side as the fascists, fascists like Marien Le Pen urged Brits to vote Leave back in 2016.
Then the world saw what leaving the EU actually means.
If it has become impossible to leave the EU then we got out just in time.
How easy would it be to leave the WTO and the UN and maintain our international position? Almost impossible, so does that mean there is an urgent need to leave them?
Taiwan's not in the UN but it's a green and pleasant land with thriving industry and unbelievable xiolongbao. If we leave the UN but get proper xiolongbao here it might be worth it. Time for dinner I think!
This is an important survey with regards to the post No Deal blame game. It all very well saying that the collapse of the talks was the EU's fault but public opinion appears to indicate that if the focus is shifted onto a failure to prepare for the consequences of that eventuality, then Johnson carries the can.
Johnson lied to the British people about a deal and it is there for all to see. If it turns out he has also lied about us prospering mightily in the event of a no deal he is going to have a problem.
Sir Abstainalot is voting for the oven ready shit deal if we get one.
"The fundamental problem is that the two sides view the negotiations very differently. As one weary British official puts it: “They view us as a departing member state not as a country they are doing a trade deal with.”
The British view is that the withdrawal agreement dealt with the process of leaving and so this agreement should be about the future. But much of the EU’s thinking reflects a mindset that fails to appreciate that the UK was quite serious about leaving in the first place. For instance, the EU is keen that Britain doesn’t deliver what it regards as unfair state aid when the Covid recovery starts. But the EU itself has no plans to restrict itself in this way and thinks that not only its coronavirus recovery scheme but Commission and European Investment Bank funding in general should be exempt from subsidy rules. It is clearly not reciprocal for the EU to be able to exempt its 750 billion euro fund from the treaty’s subsidy rules when the UK’s post-Covid funding would be subject to them.
These double-standards would quickly pose problems in other areas. Imagine, for example, that the EU decides to fund an effort to develop a zero-emissions jet aeroplane. ‘Supranational’ subsidies for this project would not be caught in the current agreement, but if Johnson went ahead with his own “jet zero” he’d be expected to follow the treaty’s state-aid rules. This is not fair. The EU should make clear that for any EU-level funding that is exempt from state aid rules, a proportionate amount of UK funding would be.
The same problem can be seen in the biggest sticking point in the talks, the so-called ratchet clause. This is meant to address what happens if the EU tightens its regulations in an area and the UK does not follow suit. The EU wants the right to unilaterally impose tariffs in these circumstances. There would be no obligation to show that the UK’s different standards were distorting trade. The EU would simply be able to act. But the UK would not be able to hit back. The text proposed by the EU would block us from responding to measures that they thought were unfair or disproportionate with their tariffs.
It is not sustainable to have a system where the EU can act as judge and jury and then unilaterally disarm the UK to prevent it from taking countermeasures.
There is a potential solution to this problem. The EU could still have the right to respond if it increased regulations and the UK didn’t follow. It would, though, not be able to do this automatically. Rather, it would have to go to arbitration and show that the different standards were having a material effect. This would deal with the EU’s medium-term concern about the UK trying to undercut it while maintaining zero tariff, zero quota access to its market. But it would also reassure the British side that it could not be subject to capricious actions by Brussels every time the EU introduced a relatively minor change.
."
Reads like a story written in No 10 and sent to the husband of the Press Secretary. Which worries me, as it's not a message to EU negotiators - these points will have been made ad nauseam in the room - but a message to a key section of the Johnson voting coalition. First time I've thought this isn't a bluff and they really are now laying the ground for No Deal.
It's a bit late to lay the ground for No Deal to people who were not expecting it i.e most people.
According to the poll OGH quoted in the Header it seems most people are actually expecting No Deal now.
Comments
The flexibility the UK has outside of the EU wrt third party trade is actually much wider than even I had originally thought. Nations seem very interested in signing services based trade deals with the UK which is something you and I both said back in 2016 and was denied time and again by remainers.
Claudius and Messalina spring to mind, of course. We could also perhaps mention Mr William O'Shea, most of whose children were fathered by Charles Parnell.
But surely the most famous of the lot would be Sir William Hamilton, husband of Emma Hamilton and therefore forced to pretend Nelson's daughter Horatia was his own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hamilton_(diplomat)#Second_marriage
I'd have picked the same two teams in the 1970 final, but that was more a virtuoso performance by Brazil than a match. I'm biased though because any 'greatest game' has to have Pele playing.
0 0 0
the amount of £s Betfair Exchange has settled on an event that everyone else settled a month ago??
https://twitter.com/MediaGuido/status/1337069118789476357
6", 9" and 12" reminds me of Singles, EPs and LPs = so a short play, an extended play and a long play. Alas, I hated Shakespeare at school and so my knowledge is limited to the one play studied for O Level - Romeo and Juliet. I am not sure it is the right answer to any of those three.
It was a bloody pain, there's only so much TV you can watch, all your mates are still working, and when you finally do go back to work, it's a shock to the body and brain for ages.
9" AMND
12" 2GOV
That’s terrific news for the EU. How this effects the EU UK negotiations hard to say.
* Most notably regarding intellectual property, but also some rather onerous ones regarding labour content in autmotive
Perhaps I should assist by telling you that AYLI is the right answer to the second one.
Think gutter.
Italy and Brazil were in a group with the World Cup holders, Argentina. Both beat Argentina and so their match was the decider. Italy went on to beat Poland while West Germany beat France in a thriller. Italy won the final 3-1.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/the-eu-has-dangerously-misread-britain-tlltcnwj9
[We really need TSE at this point.]
Their new deal with Japan contains stricter commitments on state aid than what the EU are asking for. So why is that no big deal for sovereignty but yet signing something with less stringent measures not possible with the EU .
For legal purposes, you know, that Prince of a guy who runs the Kebab shop.
The two sides are simultaneously close and far apart. They are near to a zero-tariff, zero-quota deal. But they are still stuck on the same issues that they have been for months: fishing and the extent to which Britain adheres to certain EU rules (the so-called “level-playing field”). The British side is more pessimistic about the chances of resolving these differences.
The danger is that the remaining optimism on the European side comes from a belief that Johnson will climb down at the last minute. But this is a dangerous misreading of the situation. Johnson is under very little political pressure to do so domestically. I am told that “around the cabinet table there is a strong desire for a deal, but there is a willingness to do no-deal”. The sense that the EU hardened up their position late last week has strengthened the cabinet’s resolve. In parliament, Johnson has an 80-seat majority, his party behind him and a leader of the opposition who is visibly uncomfortable talking about Brexit, as this week’s PMQs showed.....
...It is, sometimes, assumed that the dinners and the ever-slipping deadlines are just theatre: that the two sides know they will do a deal, but both want to wait until the last moment. This is, alas, untrue. The prospects for a deal look worse than they have for some time. But the two sides need to step back and look at the big picture. They can let this descend into no-deal, poisoning relations between the EU and the UK, or they can make it the beginning of a new partnership based on reciprocity and mutual respect. When Johnson and von der Leyen speak on Sunday, they should do so in person and with an acute awareness of what is at stake.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/what-a-no-deal-brexit-means-for-the-uk-and-eu-p5gbrdj9t
As a consequence of the misfortunes facing Britain, Marine Le Pen, France’s far right leader, followed public opinion and abandoned her old promises to take France out of the EU and is now committed to remaining.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/providing-services-to-eea-and-efta-countries-after-eu-exit
I suspect that Service Engineers will be the ones really badly hit. Plus if they are bringing any spares with them they'll presumably need a Carnet. As a director of a small UK company in the 1980s, exporting computers to various European countries, I remember all that stuff with horror.
The British view is that the withdrawal agreement dealt with the process of leaving and so this agreement should be about the future. But much of the EU’s thinking reflects a mindset that fails to appreciate that the UK was quite serious about leaving in the first place. For instance, the EU is keen that Britain doesn’t deliver what it regards as unfair state aid when the Covid recovery starts. But the EU itself has no plans to restrict itself in this way and thinks that not only its coronavirus recovery scheme but Commission and European Investment Bank funding in general should be exempt from subsidy rules. It is clearly not reciprocal for the EU to be able to exempt its 750 billion euro fund from the treaty’s subsidy rules when the UK’s post-Covid funding would be subject to them.
These double-standards would quickly pose problems in other areas. Imagine, for example, that the EU decides to fund an effort to develop a zero-emissions jet aeroplane. ‘Supranational’ subsidies for this project would not be caught in the current agreement, but if Johnson went ahead with his own “jet zero” he’d be expected to follow the treaty’s state-aid rules. This is not fair. The EU should make clear that for any EU-level funding that is exempt from state aid rules, a proportionate amount of UK funding would be.
The same problem can be seen in the biggest sticking point in the talks, the so-called ratchet clause. This is meant to address what happens if the EU tightens its regulations in an area and the UK does not follow suit. The EU wants the right to unilaterally impose tariffs in these circumstances. There would be no obligation to show that the UK’s different standards were distorting trade. The EU would simply be able to act. But the UK would not be able to hit back. The text proposed by the EU would block us from responding to measures that they thought were unfair or disproportionate with their tariffs.
It is not sustainable to have a system where the EU can act as judge and jury and then unilaterally disarm the UK to prevent it from taking countermeasures.
There is a potential solution to this problem. The EU could still have the right to respond if it increased regulations and the UK didn’t follow. It would, though, not be able to do this automatically. Rather, it would have to go to arbitration and show that the different standards were having a material effect. This would deal with the EU’s medium-term concern about the UK trying to undercut it while maintaining zero tariff, zero quota access to its market. But it would also reassure the British side that it could not be subject to capricious actions by Brussels every time the EU introduced a relatively minor change.
."
This isn’t something that can be blamed on 'Remainers' or 'Leavers' or any other group. This government has had a massive majority for well over a year & appear to have failed utterly. We have a part finished lorry park in Kent that was started far too late, customs systems that /might/ exist by next March, but no guarantees. And so on and on.
None of this was necessary. We could have been prepared & we are not & the fault for that lies entirely on the shoulders of this government.
No one else is exiting the EU for a generation at least, the process has been so bloody arduous, and they have made the point that any Brexit will be terrible for Britain even with a deal, so they surely have plenty of ability to make minor moves on this without undermining their position.
Then the world saw what leaving the EU actually means.
Have to say I'm more concerned whether London moves into Tier 3 than I am with a Brexit No-Deal. The comments from The Times suggest the problem are, as they always have been, cultural rather than economic or practical.
The EU see the LPF in terms of competition, the UK in terms of sovereignty yet the fundamental seems to be the old "cake" question - we want a zero-quota zero-tariff Deal with the EU but at the same time want the right to adhere to our own standards. I get that but the question then becomes the trade off - free trade or sovereignty?
From the EU side, it looks like we want it all (and we want it now as Mr Mercury used to suggest) and we want to be in the club but not follow any of the rules.
I presume industry has figured out the impact of tariffs and obviously they cut both ways. It may well be other markets in which we can still trade freely will pick up some of the slack.
This was inevitable on so many levels - it cuts to the nub of the issue we have always had with Europe. To be a part of Europe but apart from Europe would seem to be the motto du jour.
It does appear almost nailed on that London will go into Tier 3 from Sat 19 Dec, announcement 16 Dec. Also Essex.
Employment lawyers send and receive hundreds of letters every day that threaten injunctions against former employees for breach of confidentiality, non-compete clauses etc. They rarely back them up because injunctions are expensive, hard to get, and the adverse costs risks are enormous. If you get a second letter making a threat of an injunction you know the threat is bullshit - if it were serious they would have just pulled the trigger - the second missive is just to please the client. Third, fourth, fifth such letters are just ignored. This shite reminds me of that.
That's the EU we will end up joining.
I know this is probably not that important in the grand scheme of things
The same mistake. Time after time after time.
Back in October, the Guardian’s Brussels bureau chief Daniel Boffey wrote:
Downing Street started using the term at the beginning of the year as a more palatable shorthand for a no-deal. The EU does not have a free-trade deal with Australia, although they are in negotiations. The two sides operate mainly on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, with huge tariffs on imports and exports.
It would be more accurate to describe the outcome that would be secured by a no-deal as an Afghanistan-style arrangement, given the lack of formal cooperation in that trading relationship. This is because the EU does have a few agreements in place with Australia that it would not have with the UK in the event of a failure of the trade and security negotiations. These include an agreement on the transfer of EU passenger name records to Australian border authorities to help combat crime and terrorism and an agreement on the mutual recognition of conformity assessments, so that a product tested to EU standards in Australia is regarded as compliant, eliminating the need for duplicative testing when it is imported.
https://www.theguardian.com/p/fyzj7/sbl
https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1337105947559403527?s=20
https://twitter.com/sammacrory/status/1337114812417978379
Now, we are still waiting for correct answers to Wet and Dry, and of course the GBS play. It is equally smutty, but requires a touch of lateral thinking. For convenience I repeat the question.
What GBS play does this represent?
0 0
0 0 0
Leaving the EU but retaining all the benefits of the EU without any costs, as espoused by the Vote Leave, Marine Le Pen, and others is what has been proven to be demonstrable bollocks.
Colonel Mathews. The House is thin; much, I believe, occasioned by observation of this day. I have a short Bill to prevent the superstition for the future. I desire it to be read.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/burton-diaries/vol1/pp228-243
Appropriate, given that they would be completely stuffing the nation.
So we better close our eyes and hope its no deal