Maybe, the negotiations are all going badly because the Brexiters don't have a leg to stand on ... No leverage to pry yourselves loose from the European coastline.
Split over Bexit....Chaos in UK.
- Thread starter Ocean Breeze
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Maybe, the negotiations are all going badly because the Brexiters don't have a leg to stand on ... No leverage to pry yourselves loose from the European coastline.
They have oars, all right but they're all rowing on the same side of their island.
You are overlooking the fact that Britain is still technically part of the UK. The real problems will start when it is officially severed from its major trading partners and the multiple subsidies that kept many UK industries afloat.
The Remainers told us hat economic disaster would have happned by not - almost immdiately after a vote to Leave. That hasn't happened. And the reason for that is that the EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU.
Busting the Remain-inspired myths about trade on WTO terms
BREXITcentral
2nd July 2018
Written by Professor David Collins
David Collins is a Professor of International Economic Law at City, University of London and author of Negotiating Brexit: The Legal Basis for EU and Global Trade, published by Politeia. He tweets at @davidcollinslaw.
Among the most vividly distressing of the post-Brexit images we have been exposed to by the Remain-dominated media is that of the mile-long queue of lorries at Dover, effectively shut out from the EU’s market because of its incompatible regulations and time-consuming inspections.
That British products will somehow be subjected to a battery of new rules and tests on Brexit Day, delaying or even prohibiting their entry into the EU, ignores the rights the UK is entitled to as a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which it will re-join as an independent member following its departure from the EU next year.
The EU is also a member of the WTO, as are most countries in the world, meaning that it is bound by the WTO’s rules. Several of these render the infamous lorry-queue scenario highly implausible.
First, the WTO’s Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), dealing with food-related products, provides that WTO Members must ensure that regulations and inspection procedures must be applied only to the extent necessary to protect health and cannot be maintained without sufficient scientific evidence. If there is no risk from British foods today while we are still in the EU, then there is no risk the day after we leave, as long as the products themselves do not change.
Furthermore, WTO Members must ensure that their food regulations do not arbitrarily or unjustifiably discriminate between Members where identical or similar conditions prevail, including between their own territory and that of other Members. Since the UK does not intend to implement a wholesale change to its regulatory standards immediately after Brexit, the EU cannot treat products from the UK differently than they did before Brexit.
Second, with regards to safety standards for all other types of goods – like furniture or kettles – the WTO’s Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement likewise states that technical regulations shall not be more trade-restrictive than necessary to fulfil a legitimate objective, such as consumer safety, taking account of the risks non-fulfilment would create. Moreover, conformity assessment procedures should not be prepared, adopted or applied with a view to or with the effect of creating unnecessary obstacles to international trade.
This means that product safety testing procedures cannot be more burdensome or be applied more strictly than is necessary to give the importing Member adequate confidence that products conform with the applicable technical regulations or standards. This means that the EU cannot impose regulatory barriers on UK goods without justification after Brexit as long as product and safety standards between the two jurisdictions remain aligned.
If the UK seeks to modify its own regulatory procedures regarding health and safety of products going forward – perhaps with a view to eliminating some of the laws that have made the EU uncompetitive – the EU may at that point be entitled to request additional testing or inspection at the border. However, the TBT Agreement provides that under such circumstances, WTO Members shall give positive consideration to accepting as equivalent technical regulations of other Members, even if these regulations differ from their own, provided they are satisfied that these regulations adequately fulfil the objectives of their own regulations.
In other words, a potential new UK regulatory scheme would effectively need to ignore consumer safety in order for any additional testing procedures at the EU border to be allowed under WTO law. It is unlikely that this will occur in the near future, if ever. Even if it were to happen, such conformity assessment procedures would still need to be no more burdensome than necessary.
Lastly, on the formalities of customs procedures at the border, the WTO’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) recognises the need for minimising the incidence and complexity of import and export formalities (for both tariff and non-tariff barriers) and for decreasing and simplifying import and export documentation requirements.
This is further enshrined in the new Trade Facilitation Agreement, which obliges WTO members to minimise customs formalities through technology, including many of the features discussed in relation to the maximum facilitation strategy for the Northern Ireland frontier. The new UK-EU border must adhere to this high standard of frictionless transit precisely for the purpose of avoiding long delays caused by needless red tape of the kind we have been told to fear.
Contrary to what many doomsayers may wish the public to believe, UK goods will not suddenly become hazardous to the health and safety of EU consumers the day after Brexit. There is no way that the EU could get away with placing additional arbitrary restrictions on goods imported from the UK after Brexit, either with respect to the content of the regulations, the testing procedures or customs formalities. New UK-EU non-tariff barriers would be illegal under WTO rules immediately after exit, even in a no-deal scenario.
Were the EU to impose such barriers anyway – possibly with an agenda of punishing the UK for daring to leave or to give their own suppliers an unfair advantage – the UK would be able to bring a claim against the EU through the WTO dispute settlement procedure, which it would almost certainly win.
It is worth adding that the WTO courts are far from toothless, as is sometimes suggested, enjoying an excellent compliance record among its many hundred rulings over decades of practice. Winning a case before the WTO forces the losing country to remove the illegal measure, which the EU would be expected to do promptly or else suffer retaliation in the form of tariffs on its goods, along with the acrimony of the rest of the world.
https://brexitcentral.com/busting-remain-inspired-myths-trade-wto-terms/
They've been going badly because of the deliberate ineptitude of the arrogant, undemocratic Remoaners trying to scupper them.
Britain receives no mony from the EU. It is a net contributor to the EU budget. The EU receives money from Britain - money which it is now about to lose because of Brexit, leaving a big black hole in its finances - no vice versa. It's amazing how, despite the fact that this is something that is commonly pointed out, some people just keep peddling that myth.
Our tough, brave Northerners could teach the timid South a thing or two about Brexit
Jake Berry MP, Minister for the Northern Powerhouse
26 August 2018
The Telegraph
276
Shipbuilders at Cammell Laird: they're not afraid of what Brexit might bring Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty
As our commentariat, civil servants and politicians inside the M25 were last week raging about potential sperm shortages, a possible need for the Army to appropriate bacon and other existential crises that a No Deal Brexit might bring, I took the opportunity to hammer it across the 739 miles of the Northern Powerhouse to have conversations with and take questions from over 500 Northerners on construction sites, steel mills, dockyards and offices to find out what they want to see next.
Port of Immingham dockworkers looked bemused as they told me that over 50 per cent of their current trade already comes from countries outside the EU. They explained the beauty of containerisation technology, which means customs bears more similarity to a self-scan supermarket checkout than Operation Stack. They reminded me that they already flex daily and seamlessly between EU regulations and the rest of the world so see no reason they cannot adapt calmly to the challenges Brexit may bring.
In Saltburn, the team at British Steel are more engaged with President Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs than worrying whether rail tracks they have made to improve the French high-speed rail network will still be needed. As they see it: “We make them – they can’t. We need them and they need us. And don’t forget the WTO steel tariff is zero.”
Handing back control of funds and powers directly to the North has already been shown to improve transport, increase skills, create better paid jobs and more secure employment
Cammell Laird in Merseyside has recently launched the Sir Richard Attenborough Arctic Explorer – a contract it won in a global competition. Boaty McBoatface’s transporter has set a new global standard in its class and the world-leading workers of the dockyard are now bidding into India, South America and the Far East for their next contracts. The long term sustainability of the yard – a business that has consistently returned profits since its rebirth from administration in 2001 – could of course be helped by more British orders – but these are currently restricted by both EU procurement and state aid rules.
The Northern Powerhouse
Coast to coast, I was left in no doubt that the rude health the North’s economy is in is down to the unique resilience of its people: our makers, inventors and disruptors. Since the Northern Powerhouse was launched in 2014, £20bn has been added to the North's economy and foreign direct investment is growing at twice the national average. It was in the North that people voted in their droves for Brexit and they simply don’t buy the story that they didn’t know what they were voting for, or that some sort of Vote Leave Lancashire fleece was pulled over their eyes.
For many, London is a long way away. Much of the North voted for Brexit because people there feel a disconnect from what they perceive as decades of London-based, City-centric Government. Labour have become totally London focused: the politics of Corbyn and his shadow cabinet better represent north London than support the North of England.
Port workers in the North East feel closer to Denmark than Westminster. They don’t fear their Danish friends will stop selling them bacon or sharing their donated sperm. They perceive a deck loaded against them – geared towards London and the South East. They want change. They voted for it, and are impatient for it to come.
The Northern Powerhouse is key to delivering this change. Our subnational growth strategy is specifically designed to make all who live in the North better off. Already devolution has seen the creation of powerful metro mayors in Manchester, the Tees Valley, Liverpool and South Yorkshire. Newcastle is next. For the first time in a generation, this government has returned power to the people of the Powerhouse.
Devolution for Northern England could be the golden thread of Brexit. The people of the North want to see power returned back from Brussels to the UK and through devolution to them. Handing back control of funds and powers directly to the North has already been shown to improve transport, increase skills, create better paid jobs and more secure employment. Empowering the North means the whole UK succeeds.
Northerners are brave about Brexit. We can all learn from their optimism and spirit of resilience.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...ers-could-teach-timid-south-thing-two-brexit/
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More good news for the Brexiteers. Apparently when their EU stamped passports and drivers' licenses expire they will have to be reissued as British passports. Of course this will only cost about a billion pounds.
I thought Brexit was supposed to save money. All I see is the Brits having to spend billions replacing services the EU already provided and losing free access to the EU's enormous economy.
And it's supposed to bring us back the British passport.
What do you want to happen? 66.5 million non-EU citizens to use EU passports?
I'm still waiting for the so-called Brexit advantages to materialize. Is there any timeline on that mythical event?
They keep going on about their "special relationship sith the United States".
Good luck with that. The United States doesn't have friends, anymore. They have supplicants.
The British have no passport? I'm not British and even I know the British have a passport. You don't travel much, do you.
WORLD
November 14, 2018 8:00 am Updated: November 14, 2018 11:48 am
Theresa May wins cabinet approval for draft Brexit withdrawal plan
https://globalnews.ca/news/4661985/...erNational&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=2018
November 14, 2018 8:00 am Updated: November 14, 2018 11:48 am
Theresa May wins cabinet approval for draft Brexit withdrawal plan
https://globalnews.ca/news/4661985/...erNational&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=2018
Saw that on the BBC. It appears it is far short of what the Brexiteers hoped for.
A huge blow for Theresa May, the Remainers and May's pathetic "Brexit-in-name-only" 585-page deal on a day of political chaos in Britain.
Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, Northern Ireland minister Shailesh Vara and Brexit minister Suella Braverman have all resigned in protest. But the biggest blow to Mrs May was the resignation this morning of Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab - the second Brexit Secretary to resign, following David Davis earlier this year.
May could now have just days left in office, with Brexiteers such as Dominic Raab and Jacob Rees-Mogg after her job. And it looks like Britain is heading for a No Deal Brexit - which will please most of the 17.4 million who voted to Leave.
Brexit: Dominic Raab and Esther McVey among ministers to quit over EU agreement
BBC News
15 January 2018
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has resigned saying he "cannot in good conscience support" the UK's draft Brexit agreement with the EU.
He was swiftly followed out of the door by Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey and junior Brexit minister Suella Braverman.
It comes hours after Theresa May announced that she had secured the backing of her cabinet for the deal.
Chief whip Julian Smith said she "will not be bullied" into changing course.
The prime minister is currently making a Commons statement on the Brexit agreement, telling MPs it was not a final agreement, but brings the UK "close to a Brexit deal".
There was laughter and shouts of "resign" as she said that it would allow the UK to leave the EU "in a smooth and orderly way" on 29 March.
Setting out details of the arrangements for a possible "backstop" - that has caused so much anger among Brexiteers - Mrs May said: "I do not pretend that this has been a comfortable process, or that either we or the EU are entirely happy with some of the arrangements which have been included in it."
But she added that "while some people might pretend otherwise, there is no deal which delivers the Brexit the British people voted for which does not involve this insurance policy".
She said the agreement would deliver the Brexit people voted for and allow the UK to take back control of its "money, laws and borders".
Mr Raab - a Leave supporter who was promoted to the cabinet to replace David Davis when he quit in protest at Mrs May's Brexit plans - is among a group of senior ministers thought to be unhappy with the agreement.
Mr Raab was closely involved in drafting the 585-page document, which sets out the terms of Britain's departure from the EU.
In his resignation letter, Mr Raab said he could not support it because the regulatory regime proposed for Northern Ireland "presents a very real threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom".
And, he added, the "backstop" arrangements aimed at preventing the return of a hard Irish border would result in the EU "holding a veto over our ability to exit".
"Above all, I cannot reconcile the terms of the proposed deal with the promises we made to the country in our manifesto at the last election," he told the prime minister.
Esther McVey: Agreement does not honour referendum
In her resignation letter, Esther McVey told Mrs May the agreement does not "honour the result of the referendum, indeed it does not meet the tests you set from the outset of your premiership".
"We have gone from no deal is better than a bad deal to any deal is better than no deal," she added.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a ministerial aide at the education department, has also quit.
Northern Ireland minister Shailesh Vara was the first to resign over Mrs May's agreement on Thursday morning, saying, it "leaves the UK in a halfway house with no time limit on when we will finally be a sovereign nation".
Conservative Brexiteer MP Anne Marie Morris told BBC News she believed enough Tory MPs had now submitted letters of no-confidence in the prime minister to trigger a leadership contest.
She said there was enough time to install a new prime minister and change course on Brexit, adding: "Now is not the time for her leadership."
The resignations came as European Council President Donald Tusk announced an emergency meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on 25 November, at which the withdrawal agreement and a political declaration on future relations will be finalised and formalised.
What is in the withdrawal agreement?
commitments over citizens' rights after Brexit - people will be able to work and study where they currently live and to be joined by family members
a proposed 21-month transition period after the UK's departure
a "fair financial settlement" from the UK - also known as the £39bn "divorce bill"
But the controversial part relates to what will happen to the Irish border.
The agreement includes a "backstop" - a kind of safety net to ensure there is no hard border whatever the outcome of future trade talks between the UK and the EU.
The backstop will mean that Northern Ireland would stay aligned to some EU rules on things such as food products and goods standards.
It would also involve a temporary single customs territory, effectively keeping the whole of the UK in the EU customs union.
Brexiteers do not like the prospect of potentially being tied to EU customs rules for years or even, as some fear, indefinitely.
And Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party has said it will not tolerate anything that creates a new border down the Irish Sea and they will not vote for the agreement.
Analysis
By BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg
A resignation in itself is not a surprise - but the departure of the Brexit secretary might be the domino that causes everything else to fall.
It's not just that it was his job to make the policy work. It's because he has just given unhappy Brexiteers someone to rally round, and someone who sees himself as a potential challenger to the PM.
After his departure, it becomes extremely difficult for other Brexiteers unhappy about the deal to stay on.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46219495
Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, Northern Ireland minister Shailesh Vara and Brexit minister Suella Braverman have all resigned in protest. But the biggest blow to Mrs May was the resignation this morning of Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab - the second Brexit Secretary to resign, following David Davis earlier this year.
May could now have just days left in office, with Brexiteers such as Dominic Raab and Jacob Rees-Mogg after her job. And it looks like Britain is heading for a No Deal Brexit - which will please most of the 17.4 million who voted to Leave.
Brexit: Dominic Raab and Esther McVey among ministers to quit over EU agreement
BBC News
15 January 2018
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has resigned saying he "cannot in good conscience support" the UK's draft Brexit agreement with the EU.
He was swiftly followed out of the door by Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey and junior Brexit minister Suella Braverman.
It comes hours after Theresa May announced that she had secured the backing of her cabinet for the deal.
Chief whip Julian Smith said she "will not be bullied" into changing course.
The prime minister is currently making a Commons statement on the Brexit agreement, telling MPs it was not a final agreement, but brings the UK "close to a Brexit deal".
There was laughter and shouts of "resign" as she said that it would allow the UK to leave the EU "in a smooth and orderly way" on 29 March.
Setting out details of the arrangements for a possible "backstop" - that has caused so much anger among Brexiteers - Mrs May said: "I do not pretend that this has been a comfortable process, or that either we or the EU are entirely happy with some of the arrangements which have been included in it."
But she added that "while some people might pretend otherwise, there is no deal which delivers the Brexit the British people voted for which does not involve this insurance policy".
She said the agreement would deliver the Brexit people voted for and allow the UK to take back control of its "money, laws and borders".
Mr Raab - a Leave supporter who was promoted to the cabinet to replace David Davis when he quit in protest at Mrs May's Brexit plans - is among a group of senior ministers thought to be unhappy with the agreement.
Mr Raab was closely involved in drafting the 585-page document, which sets out the terms of Britain's departure from the EU.
In his resignation letter, Mr Raab said he could not support it because the regulatory regime proposed for Northern Ireland "presents a very real threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom".
And, he added, the "backstop" arrangements aimed at preventing the return of a hard Irish border would result in the EU "holding a veto over our ability to exit".
"Above all, I cannot reconcile the terms of the proposed deal with the promises we made to the country in our manifesto at the last election," he told the prime minister.
Esther McVey: Agreement does not honour referendum
In her resignation letter, Esther McVey told Mrs May the agreement does not "honour the result of the referendum, indeed it does not meet the tests you set from the outset of your premiership".
"We have gone from no deal is better than a bad deal to any deal is better than no deal," she added.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a ministerial aide at the education department, has also quit.
Northern Ireland minister Shailesh Vara was the first to resign over Mrs May's agreement on Thursday morning, saying, it "leaves the UK in a halfway house with no time limit on when we will finally be a sovereign nation".
Conservative Brexiteer MP Anne Marie Morris told BBC News she believed enough Tory MPs had now submitted letters of no-confidence in the prime minister to trigger a leadership contest.
She said there was enough time to install a new prime minister and change course on Brexit, adding: "Now is not the time for her leadership."
The resignations came as European Council President Donald Tusk announced an emergency meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on 25 November, at which the withdrawal agreement and a political declaration on future relations will be finalised and formalised.
What is in the withdrawal agreement?
commitments over citizens' rights after Brexit - people will be able to work and study where they currently live and to be joined by family members
a proposed 21-month transition period after the UK's departure
a "fair financial settlement" from the UK - also known as the £39bn "divorce bill"
But the controversial part relates to what will happen to the Irish border.
The agreement includes a "backstop" - a kind of safety net to ensure there is no hard border whatever the outcome of future trade talks between the UK and the EU.
The backstop will mean that Northern Ireland would stay aligned to some EU rules on things such as food products and goods standards.
It would also involve a temporary single customs territory, effectively keeping the whole of the UK in the EU customs union.
Brexiteers do not like the prospect of potentially being tied to EU customs rules for years or even, as some fear, indefinitely.
And Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party has said it will not tolerate anything that creates a new border down the Irish Sea and they will not vote for the agreement.
Analysis
By BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg
A resignation in itself is not a surprise - but the departure of the Brexit secretary might be the domino that causes everything else to fall.
It's not just that it was his job to make the policy work. It's because he has just given unhappy Brexiteers someone to rally round, and someone who sees himself as a potential challenger to the PM.
After his departure, it becomes extremely difficult for other Brexiteers unhappy about the deal to stay on.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46219495