@thevfmaddict
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Yep. Do you recall his views when Eire was forced to vote twice.
Take a look here. That’s JC before he sold his beliefs in pursuit of power.
As regard Italy and, come to think of it the Poland- Hungry alliance and Brexit, the EU is surrounded and fighting on three fronts.
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I recall a few posts back folks were saying that the EU would support Eire. Oh really. There is talk in Brussels of Eire being kicked out of the Customs Union if it does not set up a hard border in the event of a No Deal Brexit. Great to see the EU stands by its members. Perhaps Leo V. had already heard whispers of such given his flip flopping between Eire having no intention to ever set-up a hard border and then talking about uniforms on it.
Belgian MEP Philippe Lamberts has been quoted as telling Die Spiegel that: “If Ireland refuses to protect the border with Northern Ireland after a hard Brexit, we would have to relocate the customs border to the continent.”
Meanwhile German MEP Elmar Brok, who is in Angela Merkel’s party, has talked up the same possible outcomes: “The defence of the internal market is the basis of our economic success in Germany.” He says that if the Irish didn’t put up a hard border “we would have to set up the customs border with Ireland”.
So its – All for one and one for all, ’til the EU sents Eire, to the wall. Heck how many BMW or VAG fakes made in China do they expect to be smuggled across the N.I. border if it isn’t hard? You’ve just gotta love the EU haven’t you. I think the Irexit lobby just got a massive boost. Once the EU starts threatening Eire and saying trash the GFA or we’ll shaft you, a whole lot of Irish will begin to see the light. We have never threatened a hard border.
No wonder also that today the DUP dug in really deep saying that the backstop must be removed totally, not just tinkered with. My prediction switches today to a snap GE given that the Tories are increasingly ahead in the opinion polls and the DUP are starting to don full war paint. What say you all?
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On another issue as I’ve been saying for weeks the WA Backstop instead of protecting the GFA actually violates it. Now Lord Trimble and a few others who were instrumental in the GFA have announced they are taking the matter to law. A Judicial Review is being sought on the basis that the backstop violates the the Principle of Consent enshrined in the GFA.
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@EdP
Ed, I think you missed the whole point of my post. Free trade deals facilitate predominantly the moving of labour intensive manufacturing to areas with low labour costs. Honestly, Ed, how much labour intensive manufacturing would remain in the EU if it had free trade deals with India or China? With free trade deals far better to manufacture there and no tariffs when you ship the stuff into the EU.
However, Ed, we have not been a labour intensive manufacturing economy for quite a few decades now. Therefore we lose few jobs by free trade deals. Our exports are services, tech R&D, high tech limited production products, etc. That is to say things that cannot be done in the workhouses of China and India – or – where its hardly worth moving production there because labour costs were not a huge percentage of producing you product. With FTA’s we gain because we can import manufactured goods cheaply and the things we do export become cheaper tariff free imports for our customers. So if anyone gets the best out of free trade deals its us because our labour intensive manufacturing is already close to non-existent. Can’t you see that.
Tell me what’s the average labour cost in China versus Germany? The difference is not something business can ignore. An EU free trade deal with China and even BMW and VAG might find it insane not to shift production.
Dave, it is clear you do not read the links I post. Reuters were clear that the main reason we have not seen an exodus in the financial services markets is down to the fact that we are an International centre that works in English as its first language. Here’s the link again. That’s what ‘English’ has to do with it.
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I might be inclined to agree with you Dave had Nissan been moving production in the Europe. But it is not. It is moving it to Japan which is now viable given the Japan Free Trade Deal. That would have been the case also even were we not leaving the EU. After all of the dodgy dealing with Nissan directors of late I am sure repatriating jobs to the homeland buys and is intended in part to buy them brownie points at home. One must remember that the potential customs tariffs if they built the X-Trail in the UK are far outweighed by shipping costs when production is in Japan and their market in mainland Europe. So this seems likely not to be a solely economic move. This truly has nothing to do with Brexit and more to do with the EU-Japan Free Trade deal that facilitates repatriation of jobs.
What this does highlight is that EU free trade deals could as regards some industries result in significant job loses. Just about any manufacturing that is manual worker intensive would I suspect be absolutely certain to leave EU soil if there were a China-EU trade or India-EU trade deal. They pay workers far less in both those states than even workers in ex-Soviet bloc EU states earn.
The reality, is it not, that the UK is not and can never realistically be a sustainable industrial manufacturing state either in or out of the EU; unless one wants to cut the minimum wage by at least three quarters of what it is now. Even that would leave UK workers earning more an hour than those in India or China.
The UK economy can only remain viable based on services and cutting edge technology where we already hold a lead. It cannot be dismissed that English is our first language, the de-facto international language in so many industries, also comes into the mix. I’ve seen it at international medical symposium where Finns and Italians have trouble conversing with each other and default to English so much so that both seem more comfortable talking to Brits in the first place. The domination of American culture has also strengthened this reliance on English. I don’t know if you are aware but the majority of TV programmes in Sweden are transmitted in English. Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting any superiority on our part. In many ways its an accident of history that English dominates and perhaps even more down to American world influence than ours but that such is our first language provides something of an edge that should not be undervalued especially in the financial and scientific markets.
I notice that folks here have often said what have we to export that anyone wants if we leave the EU? In reality one could equally say what do we have we to export if we stay in it? The two are surely the same. Industrial manufacturing is pretty much dead in the UK or at the very least terminally dying. That is a malaise that will similarly infect the EU as it strikes trade deals with low labour cost states or those which would if possible repatriate such jobs. Nissan pretty much proves the second clause. If building within ones eventual market were vital they would have moved X-Trail production into the EU. They did not.
As I see it and put simply the states of the EU that economically survive this century will be those that do so (in the simplest terms) by selling their specialist skills and not their brawn. The UK has been moving down that road for several decades. We have a head start. If you want to see that reality in action just look at Dyson. Research and Development remains in the UK, production is moved off to low labour cost states. That’s the way the whole EU will go as there are more free trade deals.
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An interesting question arises here. Who prompted the release of this information? Was it Remain motivated individuals in order to ramp up project fear or was it Leave motivated individuals knowing folks would see such as preposterous fear-mongering? I’m thinking it was Leaver motivated simply because it is likely to ‘infect’ other, but perhaps legitimate, fear stories with a taint of absurdity. Also, as it will never happen then when it does not if hard Brexit occurs its another thing Brexiteers can point to and say – “See it WAS just fear mongering as we said it was”.
Either way Machiavellianism is in an opportunity rich environment at present.
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Come on now, Dave, we have not “signed up to this deal”. It is an utter falsehood to suggest that we have signed up to the proposed WA. It is nothing more than a proposition that May agreed to put to her parliament just as the EU agreed to put to theirs. Their parliament signed up to it ours by a massive majority did not – the largest defeat for a sitting government in history. Has that escaped you?
As for existing agreements possibly the most important is the GFA with both sides alleging it is sacred. So be it. In that case why are the EU insisting on an agreement that deliberately breaches it? The constitutional changes re the status of N.I. that derive of the WA’s backstop cannot be applied without the consent of the peoples of N.I. Were we to accept the WA as is then there would exist a breach of international law because the GFA has primacy being in force first. To sign the WA backstop would be in simple terms akin to bigamy the first marriage having primacy.
Some have even argued, albeit in a fashion I cannot morally agree with, that perhaps we should sign the WA as is and then at a time of our own choosing simply ignore the backstop on the basis that because the GFA was in force the backstop could not legitimately be complied with. I do wonder if this was what Gove was thinking when he proffered some time back that we could simply tear the agreement up at a later date.
The reality is that while the WA’s backstop, were the WA signed as is, could technically be torn up at a later date, the Malthouse proposals are not vulnerable to such and therefore if anything give the EU and Eire an even better guarantee that a hard border would be avoided.
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Hot off the Press – One hour ago Reuters trashed another sacred cow of Project Fear. What exodus of finance jobs? There really hasn’t been one:
“Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, UBS, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are seeking to fill 1,545 new roles in Britain, numbers up to January 22 show.
In Germany and France – the two countries predicted to see the biggest influx of financial services from Britain as a result of Brexit – just 301 roles have been listed.
Only Deutsche Bank is looking to hire more people in Germany than in Britain, with 133 German vacancies posted online compared to 132 in the UK.”
and
“Culturally, Paris is French, Frankfurt is German but London is international. The Americans – who own this industry – want to operate in an English speaking environment. No one wants to go,” said Martin Armstrong, partner at headhunting firm Armstrong International.
See here.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
I think you forget the Eire dynamic. Eire relies on the UK both as an export market and land bridge to the EU. A hard No Deal Brexit would be instantly catastrophic for Eire and it would require over night a level of financial support that would in all probability exceed that which was needed by Greece. And need it at a time when the economies of German and France are stalling and it has lost a net contributor (i.e. us). I simply do not see the EU being able to bail out Eire. That is the EU’s big problem. Let Eire sink or reach into German pockets again at a time when its own exports to us would be falling. I truly don’t think that the German electorate would stomach it. And all this would happen just before EU elections. AfD would blossum on a staggering scale.
If we hold firm the WA will be reopened. The EU will swallow Malthouse, which as a deal is still hugely a win for the EU. Frankly if Nicky Morgan is on-board for Malthouse one would have to be a truly fanatical Remainer not to be.
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Visa free EU travel for Brits (90 days in any 180 days) now agreed by EU Council even if its a No Deal Brexit. Seems the EU is getting more and more real, recognising that UK tourism is a vital income stream for many EU states. Now folks do you think they are going to agree that and then hinder air travel? Of course not. Scratch two more fear stories off Project Fear then. Oh and what about the food scare stories. French farmers are far too aggressive a bunch when it comes to protests to allow Macron to sanction such disruption – Yellow Jackets with pitchforks I suspect !!!
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Dave, I could of course respond by asking you why you are blind to the dangerous consequences financial and political of remaining in the dysfunctional EU. The reality is that we hold opposing views both of the consequences leaving the EU and of they way in which we leave the EU.
The reality is that no-one can predict with certainty what the result of any potential outcome is. Politicians, along with Financial and Business Experts predicted we would be sunk if we did not join the Euro. They were wrong. Likewise the same predicted the Pound, Employment and the Economy would crash the minute we voted out. That did not happen either. Employment levels are the best ever. The Pound is about where it should be given that experts were saying it was about 13% overvalued pre the Ref vote. The Economy is flying by comparison to the trends in France, Germany and Italy. Inward investment is also booming which everyone said would slump. I could say why do you ignore the writing on the wall? Have you noticed how this month despite a No Deal Brexit becoming even more likely the Pound has actually been strengthening markedly against the Euro and Dollar.
I do take your point about MAD. But MAD actually stops destruction. It worked to keep the world from nuclear war or war in Europe at least for more than six decades, did it not? The same is true here. There is only mutually destruction if both sides want it. Are you saying that the EU is so ideologically fanatical that it will prefer destruction to compromise? As I explained earlier failing to compromise on the backstop could generate an existential crisis for the EU due to the ‘Eire Effect’. It seems to me that it is the EU that are threatening mutually destruction or at the very least the destruction of Eire. It is utter tribe to say they are just trying to protect the GFA. Their backstop violates the GFA because the constitutional consequences of such are not with the consent of N.I. which the GFA guarantees such changes must be.
I wonder, did you read Lord Bew’s Policy Note linked to earlier or Prof. Kinsella’s article in the Irish Times also linked to earlier. If not you may find them illuminating. Closing back on the principle of MAD, provided both sides recognise that MAD is the likely outcome unless compromise is reached then such MD never occurs. Sooner or later there had to be a red line. The backstop is ours and frankly no-one can say we have not ourselves if anything overly compromised in every other respect.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
If there was a No Deal Brexit they’d need far, far more than that just to marginally survive. I’d have to look it up but I seem to recall that we account for about 78% of Eire’s exports and most of the other 22% has to flow through the UK to get to its ultimate destination. Of course if it was a truly hard No Deal Brexit then the the EU is £39B down to start with plus our net contributions each year. On top of that the French and German economies are stalling with Germany’s growth predictions for next year having just been halved. Italy is also technically in recession and with a hard Brexit I suspect there will be fewer UK tourists going to all of the Med. states for a year or two. All in all the EU’s purse would be strained in the extreme. I just can’t see the German electorate being happy with having to bail out yet another country, can you?
I think folks truly do not realise how the objectives of ‘protecting the project’ clash with the realities of protecting each individual states’ economy. The interests of the ‘project’ all too often clash with the interests and desires of the individual states; as we have also seen recently with Italy, Poland and Hungry. Just how fragile the project truly is is being slowly exposed at present. I suspect the cracks will become even more obvious over the next month or so.
I don’t buy this thing about the EU always sticking to its rules and dicta. It was against EU law and Euro rules to bail out Greece but look how that was brushed aside when push came to shove.
It will become clear that if the EU refuses to bend on the backstop then the EU is facing more of an existential crisis than if it does bend. Because either – (a) it will have to show that it does not stand by its members and let Eire drown – or – (b) it will have to bail out Eire and give the Eurosceptic parties across the EU huge ammunition right at election time in the form of the huge financial burden that that bail out would or will soon impose on the main EU states.
I’d lay a bet that in the case of a No Deal Brexit the Euro would be under every bit as much pressure as the Pound.
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Good Article. I see its author, Prof Ray Kinsella, holds Uni Chairs in N.I. and Dublin. His subject is Banking and Financial Services. From what I see on the net he is well respected. Reading the article I have to say he makes entirely logical arguments some of which I have not see tendered before. Its a great read.
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LOL ……. No, Ed, only to their numbers when it comes to crunch votes.
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Bercow has selected the following amendments for a vote and it starts at 7pm:
(a) Jeremy Corbyn
(o) Ian Blackford
(g) Dominic Grieve
(b) Yvette Cooper
(j) Rachel Reeves
(i) Caroline Spelman
(n) Graham BradyThe Cooper and the Brady are the big ones. I don’t think that after the Sun’s front page this morning the Cooper one will pass because there will be more Labour rebels than Tory rebels (especially now that The Malthouse Plan is building a consensus). The Brady one is equally likely to fail despite being Tory whipped because the ERG have said they won’t back it. The others may or may not pass and frankly none has binding power on the Government so they aren’t really worth bothering about.
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This might bring you up to speed re The Malthouse Plan.
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Lol, really, you get your news fon the Sun?
Nope. I check all Front Pages every day and main web news sites. However, a whole lot of Labour voters do get theirs from the Sun. That’s why it is significant.
The big issue at the moment is the deal conjured up by Nicky Morgan and JRM, etc. Massive momentum for it right now as I post. Even the DUP have just come onboard. I suspect Labour will have little option but to come onboard also or get the blame for No Brexit or No Deal if that happens. Its a masterstroke by the Tories getting Remainers, Leavers and the DUP to concur. I still can’t get over Morgan and JRM working together and agreeing. Only thing that would shock me more was if Soubry and Grieve got onboard too. My guess is that this development (i.e. this new plan) will knock the wheels off the Cooper amendment.
If the EU fail to accept this new plan then I’m pretty sure it will be a hard No Deal Brexit and they will recognise that. Massive pressure on them too therefore as they (especially Eire) simply don’t want a hard No Deal. By the way this new plan is being referred to as The Malthouse Plan.
EDIT AS I POST – Labour have just this minute committed to backing the Cooper amendment. Well at least Corbyn has balls given the Sun front page and the Malthouse Plan. GAME ON.
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Yep, that’s why those who take the EU buck as Commissioners lose can their pensions if they ever criticise it after leaving office. Such patronage is offensive in the extreme is it not. Imagine if you could lose your pension if you ever critcised an ex- employer. Stinks doesn’t it?
Moving back to amendments the only one that has real consequence is Yvette Cooper’s as it could lead to legally binding legislation. However, I suspect Labour MP’s may get the severe wobbles after today’s Sun that seeks to lay blame squarely and fully at their feet if Brexit is thwarted. A front page that reads big and bold, “DON’T LET LABOUR KILL BREXIT” is a political IED that Labour will have difficulty defusing other than by voting down the Cooper amendment. It would take a very brave, foolhardy or huge majority Labour MP to back Yvette’s amendment in the face of that. In the Labour seats of the north that voted Leave letting this bomb go off could very, very easily be career ending.
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Surely first its a case of which amendments Bercow will allow to be voted on? I wonder if he is pondering whether he really wants a peerage or not because sure as heck he could kill off any possibility of one today.
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@Dave
I think Dave you may well have missed that the political dynamic has changed fundamentally in the UK. People now define themselves by their position on Brexit rather than by party allegiance. Brexit passions one way or the other are now the driving force and I think the posts in this thread make such quite clear. I guess, but perhaps I am wrong and you can clarify, that you would vote Corbyn as fearful you may be of his politics if he was definitely keeping us in the EU but May was going No Deal Brexit. Likewise, if May were keeping us in I would take the chance of voting Corbyn knowing what his ‘own’ desires are rather than his party’s.
You are right about what Gove said. And for that matter Mervyn King also wrote that were the unlimited backstop in place a future government would be likely to renege on it because it was unacceptable. I tend to agree so either way an unlimited backstop would never endure anyway.
@Ed
I think you miss the point Ed. Why stick to the backstop if the consequences of doing so are a No Deal Brexit? Isn’t that a case of saying one is so fearful of a hard border that one is going to make it happen; assuming that Eire insist that without a backstop that is what would happen. Of course if that would not happen then there is no need for the backstop anyway, is there. The EU/Eire position is flawed of itself, is it not? As much as a No Deal Brexit may hurt us or the EU it would destroy the Irish economy entirely. We are both the vast percentage of their entire export market – and – their land bridge to pretty the entire percentage of their other export markets. Eire’s position is to hold a gun to its own head and threaten they will pull the trigger unless we do as they say. It is nonsense. And if we go No Deal the EU is going to be in no financial position to render the sort of assistance Eire would need to survive.
Things are changing. Our hand gets stronger by the day and I suspect we will now start to play it. Today’s news that Nicky Morgan and other Remainers are working with JRM on a plan for a managed No Deal Brexit moving towards a normal FTD provides conclusive proof of that. If she sees the writing on the wall there can be no doubt it is there. Former Remainers including government ministers Stephen Hammond and Rob Buckland, have it seems also been working with Nicky Morgan, JRM and Steve Baker on this new plan. That truly is ‘working across the Brexit aisle’. Who would ever have anticipated that.
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