Hard Brexit or Hard Brexit

[Scot Dutchy]

Nice Brian.

[mistermack]

The EU accounts for c.44% of the UK's exports and c.53% of its imports.

You seem to be making the fundamental mistake, of confusing the economy, with the international trade of the country.

I'm afraid it puts your other posts in a rather bad light, if you don't know the difference.

All of your predictions, and those of the remoaners, have the advantage of taking years to disprove.
I'm of the opinion that in five years time, life will have changed very little in this country. Which is a shame. But I think it will be an opportunity missed.

Actually, I think that this brexit is being misrepresented by just a few interested parties.
The negotiators, and the unelected mandarins in the commission are all working to make it sound like a disaster. But many of the politicians of the member states are quite uneasy about the hostile atmosphere of the negotiations on the side of the EU, and sooner or later they will make their feelings felt. After all, many do plenty of trade with Britain, and they are all just one referendum away from being in the same position.

[Rum]

The point is both sides exaggerated but frankly it didn’t matter as much if the remain side did because nothing much would change. Added to that the remain campaign was pathetic and failed miserably to point out the positives of membership. They also seemed to think we would be too dumb to vote leave. Never, we see once again, underestimate the stupidity of the masses especially when called on to be patriotic.

[Scot Dutchy]

Like MM's post above; pure ignorance and wet dreams. I wonder when he will be convinced it is a total mistake? When the UK is still in the single market because May will know it is suicide to pull out or when the UK becomes the 51st. state?

[Rum]

History doesn't work like that does it? Things will move on, the UK will probably be a bit poorer than it might otherwise have been, there will be a crisis her and another there and before you know it people will forget that someone was actually to blame for the UK - or what is left of it when this is done - is poorer, diminished and rather less than it once was.

[Brian Peacock]

Oh, we'll know who to blame - it'll be the EU.

[Brian Peacock]

Seems the cheif negotiating strategy of the cabinet-bound trenchant Brexiteers is the tantrum...

An angry Michael Gove reportedly ripped up papers on post-Brexit customs options after his concerns about the proposals were downplayed.

The Sun reported that the environment secretary was so angry at the snub that he tore up a report on Theresa May’s plan for a new customs partnership with the EU at a meeting on Wednesday. 

Brexiters like Gove oppose a customs partnership with the EU, which would involve the UK collecting tariffs set by the EU customs union on goods entering the country on behalf of the bloc.

Their preferred maximum facilitation (“max fac”) alternative would use technology to minimise the need for customs checks rather than scrapping them entirely.

May split an inner cabinet committee on Brexit into two groups to allow more work to be carried out on each option.

But after six weeks of meetings, a summary drawn up by civil servants on discussions about the customs partnership option favoured by the prime minister “downplayed to almost nothing” concerns raised by Gove, the Sun reported.

The newspaper’s claim that Gove was so “livid” that he “physically ripped” the document in two has not been disputed...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... _clipboard

[Scot Dutchy]

The 'customs partnership' and the 'max fac' have both been rejected by the EU so why keep on about it but that is the arrogance of the Brexiteers; they dont listen. The still live with this illusion that the UK is still a negotiating partner.

[Svartalf]

well, those proposals were, like all brexit, attempts at having one's cake and eating it too, doesn't work like that.

[Scot Dutchy]

Surely by now those Brexiteers must realise that or are they going to keep banging their heads.

[Scot Dutchy]

Closer and closer the cliff is coming. The old Brexiteer jalopy trundles onward and onward with no one in the driving seat.

Brexit: EU says no hope of securing UK's withdrawal deal by October

Exclusive: With cabinet deadlock in the UK delaying progress, the EU's focus is on working towards a December deal

Are the Brexiteers hoping for an eleventh hour capitulation by the EU? This farce would not even raise an end of pier laugh it is so painful.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Surely by now those Brexiteers must realise that or are they going to keep banging their heads.

I think you've already answered your own question.

........................ but that is the arrogance of the Brexiteers; they dont listen. The still live with this illusion ...................

[Rum]

Real world concrete example of what happens the day after we leave as quoted on Radio 4 earlier.

Scotch whiskey (a very big export) currently goes to Korea and Japan under the favourable deals the EU has with both countries.

With no alternative deal in place both countries slap a 20% import duty on the product. And of course sales will fall.

[Brian Peacock]

The 'customs partnership' and the 'max fac' have both been rejected by the EU so why keep on about it but that is the arrogance of the Brexiteers; they dont listen. The still live with this illusion that the UK is still a negotiating partner.

The point of this publicly held cabinet dispute is to show that whatever the UK comes up with the EU will reject it. The merits and workability of the proposed customs arrangements are neither here nor there. The entire spat has been engineered to justify a no-deal Brexit, because we can't have the PM negotiating market access in exchange for commitments to maintain human rights standatds or to endorse regulatory alignment across an economic sector, can we?

[mistermack]

The posting on this thread really is a joke. If you believed it, you would get the impression that every country in the world can put whatever tariffs they like on UK goods, free of any cost. That's absolute bollocks.
If the Japs or Koreans slapped taxes on Scotch whiskey, do you honestly thing that there is nothing we buy from Japan or Korea that can be taxed? There's billions of pounds worth of imports that the UK government can put tariffs on.

As far as the internal market is concerned, I honestly can't see what all the bleating's about. It was clearly said right at the start, that the UK can't retain membership of that, without freedom of movement.#
What is so hard to understand about that? It's not a runner, and never has been.

As far as having ACCESS to it, that's there for deals to be done. China has access to it, Korea has access to it, Russia has access to it. Under the various deals that have been done.
The UK will end up having access to it, and we will do a deal, trading access to the UK market, for access to the single market. On the basis that nobody wins in a trade war, that's most likely to be a fairly even deal.