KLDC10 wrote:

Aesma wrote:

While I'm not against free trade in general, I'm pretty sure plenty of people are not too happy about the EU-South Korea FTA, because it mainly means plenty of cheaper Korean cars in our market.

Compete then. Kia's cars are pretty decent and they allow citizens on lower incomes to afford a new automobile. I think that's a good thing, and that the European Auto Industry (and particularly the German Auto Industry) needs a bit of impetus to modernise and innovate.

KLDC10 wrote:

The UK is a net contributor to the EU Budget. The money spent in Wales by the EU is merely our own money, sent back with strings attached. We can spend it far better ourselves, without the middle man.

KLDC10 wrote:

People earning up to 80,000GBP per year are not "the rich" - and certainly not if they live in London.

KLDC10 wrote:

Spending must be prioritised.

LJ wrote:

Chances of a no-deal Brexit are increasing as the French are already preparing the the news.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/11/no-renegotiation-withdrawal-agreement-french-minister

Dutchy wrote:

LJ wrote:

Chances of a no-deal Brexit are increasing as the French are already preparing the the news.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/11/no-renegotiation-withdrawal-agreement-french-minister

Yes, the French seems to be fed up with the British.

BestWestern wrote:

Boris for PM is similar to Trump for President. He has the far right press on his side, paying him £750k a year already.

Reinhardt wrote:

I watched some of Rory Stewart's campaign launch speech yesterday. He is far more intelligent, lucid and sensible than almost all the other candidates. But he doesn't want no deal, so add that all together and there is no way he will win.

In light of the continued uncertainty in the United Kingdom regarding the ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement – as agreed with the UK government in November 2018 – and the overall domestic political situation, a ‘no-deal' scenario on 1 November 2019 very much remains a possible, although undesirable, outcome.

sabenapilot wrote:

It's no longer about what is best for the UK (has it ever been?), nor about coming up with a sensible sort of Brexit while still honouring the referendum result, it's now down to saving the Tory party from total implosion, hence any sort of Brexit is good enough for all those careerist who are going to be the only ones eligible to chose the next PM and thus government policy....

Indeed, the UK is not ready for a hard Brexit, but who ultimately cares in the Tory party?
As long as brexit is delivered, the Brexit Party who has trashed them at the polls has no more program to run on, or so they think....

Dutchy wrote:

OK, Boris Johnson That £39bn is ours, so our Boris is lying again. The EU said in a reaction to this: if you don't pay your outstanding obligations, we will not engage in any trade negotiations. So the EU position remains the same, no new negotiations about the Withdraw agreement.

The press-release from the EU is an interesting read to see where the EU is with a no-deal Brexit.

In light of the continued uncertainty in the United Kingdom regarding the ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement – as agreed with the UK government in November 2018 – and the overall domestic political situation, a ‘no-deal' scenario on 1 November 2019 very much remains a possible, although undesirable, outcome.

KLDC10 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

OK, Boris Johnson That £39bn is ours, so our Boris is lying again. The EU said in a reaction to this: if you don't pay your outstanding obligations, we will not engage in any trade negotiations. So the EU position remains the same, no new negotiations about the Withdraw agreement.

The press-release from the EU is an interesting read to see where the EU is with a no-deal Brexit.

In light of the continued uncertainty in the United Kingdom regarding the ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement – as agreed with the UK government in November 2018 – and the overall domestic political situation, a ‘no-deal' scenario on 1 November 2019 very much remains a possible, although undesirable, outcome.

It is not yours. According to the House of Lords Report, you are not legally entitled to a penny. It is a sum which has been included by two parties in an agreement which has yet to be ratified and currently has all the legal force of a pinky promise.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -say-lords

Dutchy wrote:

KLDC10 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

OK, Boris Johnson That £39bn is ours, so our Boris is lying again. The EU said in a reaction to this: if you don't pay your outstanding obligations, we will not engage in any trade negotiations. So the EU position remains the same, no new negotiations about the Withdraw agreement.

The press-release from the EU is an interesting read to see where the EU is with a no-deal Brexit.

It is not yours. According to the House of Lords Report, you are not legally entitled to a penny. It is a sum which has been included by two parties in an agreement which has yet to be ratified and currently has all the legal force of a pinky promise.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -say-lords

So the Lords say..........

We'll see, if you want any kind of trade deal with the EU, you pay your obligations agreed upon by the two executives.

noviorbis77 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

KLDC10 wrote:

It is not yours. According to the House of Lords Report, you are not legally entitled to a penny. It is a sum which has been included by two parties in an agreement which has yet to be ratified and currently has all the legal force of a pinky promise.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -say-lords

So the Lords say..........

We'll see, if you want any kind of trade deal with the EU, you pay your obligations agreed upon by the two executives.

Nonsense.

The French, Germans and Italians for one, will see a lot of job losses if we do not have a trade deal. A lot of car sales will go otherwise.

There will be a trade deal.

Regardless whether we chose to pay or not.

noviorbis77 wrote:

Nonsense.

The French, Germans and Italians for one, will see a lot of job losses if we do not have a trade deal. A lot of car sales will go otherwise.

There will be a trade deal.

Regardless whether we chose to pay or not.

sabenapilot wrote:

Not paying your depts will be considered a credit event by all rating agencies and trash the UK's credit rating overnight, right at a time when the UK government will have to increase spending (and thus borrowing) to alleviate the most painful consequences of a hard brexit… that sounds like another sound plan drawn up in a pub full of bigmouting and empty-headed delusional Brexiteers... let's take it to Brussels and see how it goes, right? Last time they all made a success of that strategy, didn't they?

KLDC10 wrote:

sabenapilot wrote:

Not paying your depts will be considered a credit event by all rating agencies and trash the UK's credit rating overnight, right at a time when the UK government will have to increase spending (and thus borrowing) to alleviate the most painful consequences of a hard brexit… that sounds like another sound plan drawn up in a pub full of bigmouting and empty-headed delusional Brexiteers... let's take it to Brussels and see how it goes, right? Last time they all made a success of that strategy, didn't they?

It isn't debt. Although, if you really did previously work for Sabena, it isn't really that much of a surprise that you wouldn't know what debt is if it jumped up in front of you.

A101 wrote:

Correct it isn’t debt. The next forward EU budget is down for 2021/7

Klaus wrote:

That's not what this is about as you should know.

During the negotiations the UK acknowledged that during the time the UK was a member (so until now) it incurred a certain volume of obligations based ont he treaties on which that membership is based.

And those obligations have nothing to do with future budgets, they are the normal contributions which are required to reap the benefits of membership on the other side.

And the UK has enjoyed those benefits (and still does), so the obligations (a bunch of which are deferred, contrary to the benefits) are just as due.

It is not "debt" in the sense of a bank loan, but regular dues legally required to be paid all the same.

And the consequences of skipping out on those obligations are comparable to a regular default if the UK should actually choose to let it come to that.

I know that truthfulness, reliability and common decency count for nothing among the current UK political class during the general descent of the country into outright chaos , but this is getting a bit ridiculous by now.

Klaus wrote:

Nobody is talking about continued payments for a transition period which wouldn't even happen with a no-deal Brexit. Those would of course not apply.

This is exclusively about those commitments which have originated in the membership up to the point of departure (which you clearly try to tiptoe around in this discussion) and refusing to pay up on those – which is what Boris is proposing – would be commensurate to the UK entering national default.

Olddog wrote:

What is funny is that some seems to fail to understand that theses roughly 39 billions over 7 years is peanuts when you have in mind that the EU GDP is close to 15 trillions a year. A 0,2 % impact is just a rounding error. But it tells a lot about how to deal with perfidious albion .....

Klaus wrote:

Nobody is talking about continued payments for a transition period which wouldn't even happen with a no-deal Brexit. Those would of course not apply.

This is exclusively about those commitments which have originated in the membership up to the point of departure (which you clearly try to tiptoe around in this discussion) and refusing to pay up on those – which is what Boris is proposing – would be commensurate to the UK entering national default.

Klaus wrote:

Nobody is talking about continued payments for a transition period which wouldn't even happen with a no-deal Brexit. Those would of course not apply.

This is exclusively about those commitments which have originated in the membership up to the point of departure (which you clearly try to tiptoe around in this discussion) and refusing to pay up on those – which is what Boris is proposing – would be commensurate to the UK entering national default.

A101 wrote:

Klaus wrote:

Nobody is talking about continued payments for a transition period which wouldn't even happen with a no-deal Brexit. Those would of course not apply.

This is exclusively about those commitments which have originated in the membership up to the point of departure (which you clearly try to tiptoe around in this discussion) and refusing to pay up on those – which is what Boris is proposing – would be commensurate to the UK entering national default.

Mate, I’m not trying to tip toe around nothing. I was trying to explain the settlement bill and if you have read my previous statements on the matter you will see I’m do not object to paying the divorce bill on either deal or no-deal it’s part and parcel of leaving the EU. Theirs no such thing as a free lunch someone allwas has to pay the bill, all Boris is trying to do is use that to get get back to the negotiations table.

scbriml wrote:

sabenapilot wrote:

or is BoJo going to beg for more time too once he's PM? At least Gove said he would, so I wouldnt be surprised BoJo will too...
Oh dear!

He says not. But then, given he's 95% bluster and buffoonery...

BestWestern wrote:

Britain’s High Commissioner to Singapore on Brexit.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... r-diplomat

Wightman said that as a result of Brexit, the nation that Singaporeans “admired for stability, common sense, tolerance and realism grounded in fact, they see beset by division, obsessed with ideology, careless of the truth … I fear many around the world share their view.”

Wightman has been one of the UK’s most senior diplomats in Asia, first as Asia-Pacific director in the Foreign Office and then as the UK ambassador in Seoul, South Korea. He has been high commissioner in Singapore since 2015.

At his farewell speech marking the Queen’s birthday, Wightman made little reference to his true views apart from highlighting the considerable political uncertainty in the UK and his personal hope that the country would find the quality of leadership required.

In his note Wightman said: “Like posts across the network and departments in the UK, we’re performing minor miracles for UK interests faced with the utter political shambles of Brexit,” he said. Singaporean ministers are “mystified as to how our political leaders allowed things to get to this pass”.

He described the Singapore-UK Partnership for the Future, an initiative to improve ties that was launched by the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, in January, as being used in the “classic manner of the illusionist”.

Wightman said post-referendum political risk was now overseas investors’ “principal consideration”. He likened Brexit’s impact to the fall of Singapore in 1942, the largest British surrender in history and the battle that showed the “complacency and arrogance of colonial leadership”.

“It transformed their view of British imperialism,” he added. “Things were never the same again. The last three years have done the same for Singaporeans’ view of contemporary Britain.”

Dutchy wrote:

noviorbis77 wrote:

There will be a trade deal.

Regardless whether we chose to pay or not.

I know you want to try, but the underlining premise: "they need us more then we need them" is only believed by the most extreme Brexiteers.

Dutchy wrote:

Indeed, it is party before country, never been as clear as now. And with Boris, it is Boris before party, before country. Quite sad actually we don't have any politicians whom put country first, Rory Stewart might be the one whom is the exception to the rule.

A few points on the £39 billion payment which the UK government has agreed to pay the EU as part of the withdrawal agreement.

This payment is regularly raised by Brexiters as a key negotiating issue. It is often claimed the £39 billion saved by refusing to make this payment will allow the UK to spent lots of money on important priorities e.g. Priti Patel says “we would also not need to hand £39 billion over to the EU, giving the Government resources to support economic growth, job creation and new trade opportunities.” It is also claimed the EU are very scared the payment won’t be made and will thus make last concessions to secure the money e.g. Daniel Moylan at BrexitCentral reckons “It is possible that the EU could give in, agreeing the wholesale removal of the Irish backstop from the text in exchange for the money on which they have so desperately counted.”

The reality, however, is that both sides of this argument – the benefit to the UK and the costs to the EU – tend to be wildly over-stated by Brexiteers. Here is a useful table from a House of Commons Library explainer on the topic, breaking down the different elements of the £39 billion.



The table shows that the £38.7 billion bill includes £16.3 billion in contributions to the EU’s multi-annual budget during the transition period. During this period, the UK will continue to receive funding from EU programmes.The House of Commons Library report estimates the UK will receive about £8 billion of this funding back during 2019-20 in the form of payments to farmers, structural funds and funding for research (see page 8). These payments would not occur if there is no deal. This means the financial “benefit” to walking away from the withdrawal agreement would really be £31 billion, albeit at a cost of the UK being seen to have reneged on financial commitments it made to its EU partners.

Second, this net payment of £31 billion would be spread over time. Scrapping the additional net contributions to the EU budget would amount to saving of £4 billion per year this year and next. The rest of the payment is spread over time, with the bulk of it, £19.8 billion, being paid over 2021-28 and a smaller amount of £2.6 billion being paid over 2021-64. That works out to be a benefit of £2.5 billion per year over 2021-28 and £56 million per year thereafter until 2064.

How much will the UK government be able to do with this money? UK GDP was £2 trillion pounds in 2017. A trillion is one thousand billion, meaning the £4 billion savings this year and next would be one fifth of one percent of UK GDP and the £2.5 billion per year savings over 2021-28 would be about one eighth of one percent of UK GDP.

So while £39 billion may seem like a huge figure when quoted without context, the reality is that this will do very little to boost the spending power of the UK government. In fact, these numbers are well below the kinds of figure by which UK budgets often overshoot or undershoot doing to various random events without anyone paying much attention e.g. the OBR’s March 2017 forecast of the budget deficit over 2017/18 was £17 billion too high (see page 35). The dividend from not paying the Brexit bill will effectively be rounding error in the public finances.

And what about the EU27? The £2.5 billion net payment per year the EU would be losing over 2021-28 equates to €2.8 billion euro per year. EU27 GDP is estimated to be €14.538 trillion last year. That’s €14,538 billion. So this loss would equate to 0.02 percent of EU27 GDP per year for eight years. That’s one fiftieth of one percent of GDP. The idea that this tiny amount is being “desperately counted on” by the EU is laughable and anyone relying on the EU to fold because the UK won’t pay its “Brexit bill” will be sorely disappointed.

The bottom line on this issue is that, viewed from a macroeconomic perspective, the Brexit bill figures are tiny and people really should not believe that this bill represents an important part of the costs or benefits of Brexit for either the UK or the EU.

There is a wider issue here in relation to explaining macroeconomic issues to the public. Any figure larger than a few million seems to ordinary people to be “a lot of money”. So “£350 million pounds per week for the NHS” or “£39 billion to spend on whatever we want” seem like huge windfalls to a large fraction of the public who, let’s be fair, can’t be expected to know the actual totals for GDP or public expenditure. It’s thus important for those contributing to public debate to put raw macroeconomic numbers in an appropriate context.

scbriml wrote:

sabenapilot wrote:

or is BoJo going to beg for more time too once he's PM? At least Gove said he would, so I wouldnt be surprised BoJo will too...
Oh dear!

He says not. But then, given he's 95% bluster and buffoonery...

scbriml wrote:

sabenapilot wrote:

Rory Stewart's result is quite interesting: these are basically 19 MPs who say they will NEVER agree to a Brexit without a deal, potentially even willing to bring down the Tory government should any PM try to nevertheless. Some have hinted at such a rebellion (Greeve explicitly, Hammond implicitly), but it seems to carry enough weight to be taken very seriously since 19 is more than the very slim majority this government holds!

I'm not sure you can read that much into the first round result as there are far too many candidates. But it's interesting that nearly 2/3 of MPs voted for someone other than Johnson.

Dutchy wrote:

When will the second round be?

LJ wrote:

Or does it mean that he views that the person who becomes PM will mess up anyway and he opts to wait for a the next leadership challenge?

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48631706

Aesma wrote:

I don't know who holds the record today, but the next PM might have the shortest tenure by far, making it look like May hanged on forever, in comparison.