The Brexit Thread

[Tubby Isaacs]

Brexit Means: Leaving Single Market, Customs Union European Court of Justice

Ha ha, Kev.

[Janik]

Brexit Means: Leaving Single Market, Customs Union European Court of Justice

Tubby Isaacs wrote: Indeed. And with the spending plans.

I'd pipe down on "government in waiting" talk. Wonderful result, but didn't quite do it, so Tories need to get on with the job and eat their shit sandwich.

Nah, it's alright to be saying that. Keeps the symbolic pressure up. As long as nobody notices the fingers crossed that bluff is ever called.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Brexit Means: Leaving Single Market, Customs Union European Court of Justice

But arithmetic shows that Labour are talking rubbish. It's not even a hypothetical.

I can't vouch for the Tories even having a survival instinct at the moment, but I'd guess that they've got somebody who can knock heads together and say "Do you fucking want Corbyn in?"

[Janik]

Brexit Means: Leaving Single Market, Customs Union European Court of Justice

Since when have facts mattered in stuff like this? It's about perception. And the perception is that May is a loser who should stand aside. Which she will probably do soon enough, but to be replaced by Johnson or Rudd or someone. All of whom have less legitimacy than Corbyn, in our current quasi-presidential era.
Keeping that front and centre is useful, even if the Commons maths do mean it can't realistically happen this side of another election.

In fact, that it isn't feasible is actually helpful. It means the bluff is a safe one to make.

[Snake Plissken]

Brexit Means: Leaving Single Market, Customs Union European Court of Justice

The lack of legitimacy for anyone is the key driver behind the "but Corbyn lost" narrative that people are starting to establish.

Much as I'd like to see it, he just doesn't have the numbers to make a minority Government work.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Brexit Means: Leaving Single Market, Customs Union European Court of Justice

Ho hum.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Brexit Means: Leaving Single Market, Customs Union European Court of Justice

Tubby Isaacs wrote: Ha ha, Kev.

That bit, in extenso, or thereabouts (from here):

If only he [Boycott] could have sorted that judge as well. ''The frustration! For nine hours and 10 minutes it drove me crackers. I couldn't understand 80 per cent of it. It was all in bloody French. I'm waiting there wondering what the hell they were saying and it's my life! I knew chuff all what was happening. Then the interpreter would turn to me and ask me something and I'd forgotten what the hell I was talking about. You can't put across to people the difficulty, the stupidity of it.

''It was medieval, it was archaic, it was such a farce.'' It is difficult in mere words to conjure Boycott's incandescent ire. His eyes flashed behind their blue contact lenses, his hands described loops of irrepressible angst and every syllable was boomed in stentorian Yorkshire. For a minute, you feel compelled to agree with him that for the French to conduct their business in French is a preposterous disgrace.

[wiblflibl]

Brexit Means: Leaving Single Market, Customs Union European Court of Justice

Bloody French, staying in France, using the French judicial system and speaking in French ...

[Diable Rouge]

As Brussels outlined, negotiations will focus on citizens' rights, the "divorce bill" and the Irish border:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40303761

Meanwhile, the London Independent reports that the UK has yet to submit its negotiating papers!

[Tubby Isaacs]

That bit, in extenso, or thereabouts (from here):

If only he [Boycott] could have sorted that judge as well. ''The frustration! For nine hours and 10 minutes it drove me crackers. I couldn't understand 80 per cent of it. It was all in bloody French. I'm waiting there wondering what the hell they were saying and it's my life! I knew chuff all what was happening. Then the interpreter would turn to me and ask me something and I'd forgotten what the hell I was talking about. You can't put across to people the difficulty, the stupidity of it.

''It was medieval, it was archaic, it was such a farce.'' It is difficult in mere words to conjure Boycott's incandescent ire. His eyes flashed behind their blue contact lenses, his hands described loops of irrepressible angst and every syllable was boomed in stentorian Yorkshire. For a minute, you feel compelled to agree with him that for the French to conduct their business in French is a preposterous disgrace.

Ha hadn't seen this. There's a very good biography of Boycott by (of all people) Leo McKinstry. The last chapter on the trial is a bit silly (guess what it says?) though clearly Boycott didn't help himself by not turning up the first time, and making it into a circus with "Geoff's Girls" the second time.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Big Phil refusing to confirm we're leaving the Single Market, by the sound of it.

[Auntie Beryl]

When Phillip Hammond is the man you have your fingers crossed for...

[Lang Spoon]

God bless us all. Our best hopes are monoglot Peter O'Hanrahanrahan civil servant/ think tank wonk types, mostly, led by a Tory wet who looks disturbingly like the dodgy geezer no one talks about from the first series of The Thick of It/funny Muppets. Their lot have decades of accumulated knowledge about trade negotiations lost to teh Brits since forever. It's going to be ugly, Scotland v India pitifully one sided ugly in some Tubbs inscrutable cricketesque analogy.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Not so much softening the tone as overruling the Prime Minister.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40299377

Speaking ahead of a meeting with other EU leaders in Brussels on Friday, Mr Hammond said: "We've set out very clearly our desired outcome in the Prime Minister's Lancaster House speech and in the Article 50 letter that we've sent.
"But it is a negotiation, and as we go into that negotiation my clear view. and I believe the view of the majority of people in Britain, is that we should prioritise protecting jobs, protecting economic growth and protecting prosperity as we enter those negotiations and take them forward."

[Antepli Ejderha]

Brexit negotiations begin tomorrow, any idea who's leading the UK team?

There are going to be lots of leaks and counter leaks which might make it interesting, I'm sure the UK is going to fuck up majorly.

[Tubby Isaacs]

David Davis is leading, apparently.

Hammond was back on message today about leaving the Single Market and Customs Union. But on the whole I'm more hopeful, and Labour talked about non-tariff barriers today. Much better.

This is good. From the Mail on Sunday of all places, so will save you having to link.

It is important we accept substantial numbers of foreign students without pretending they are immigrants. Theresa May’s inner circle seems to think otherwise. They wish to clamp down – yet that would be preposterous. Anyone who sits down with India knows that, within ten minutes, their officials will raise the restrictions already in place for Indian immigrants, many of whom wish to study here.
The idea that we can have rigid controls on foreign students and then win great trade deals is so out of touch it is embarrassing.
Finally, I would point to the sheer risk involved in putting ourselves outside of the EU. It is enormous.
We’ve already seen incomes squeezed because of the weak pound, which, in turn, is clearly due to the self-imposed risks of our national stance on Brexit.
Our so-called ‘golden relationship’ with China is fraying. And as for talk of trade deals with New Zealand, I am speechless. It is a country smaller than Greece.

Jim O'Neill, former Tory trade minister.

[Antepli Ejderha]

I've never understood why foreign students on temporary visas are included in the immigration figures, apparently only 5% stay on at the end of their studies.

[Lang Spoon]

But modern trade isn't about tariffs. You can have tariff-free trade agreements and still be unable to offer goods or services in that market. This isn't the 1870s.

[Diable Rouge]

In light of Leo's bizarre Downing St press conference, I must admit to never having seen Love Actually.

[Tubby Isaacs]

But modern trade isn't about tariffs. You can have tariff-free trade agreements and still be unable to offer goods or services in that market. This isn't the 1870s.

Yeah, that was the elephant in the room all along. Hopefully it'll get attention now. One of the best expositions of the non-tariff problems came from, of all people, Richard North, explaining what could happen to agricultural products.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I've never understood why foreign students on temporary visas are included in the immigration figures, apparently only 5% stay on at the end of their studies.

The really political figure is net migration, so if students come then leave, they don't show as net migration across time. Maybe that's it. Certainly some politicians have pressed for distinguishing students, but have the ONS?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Looking at Barnier and Davis, it's not hard to tell which one's been under the cosh.

Barnier looks like he got to work 20 minutes ago and has been quietly going through emails. Davis looks like he's been doing an all nighter.

[Diable Rouge]

Looking at Barnier and Davis, it's not hard to tell which one's been under the cosh.

Barnier looks like he got to work 20 minutes ago and has been quietly going through emails. Davis looks like he's been doing an all nighter.

Also appears Davis has made the first concession, given that trade talks will only follow the political settlement.

[Snake Plissken]

Also appears Davis has made the first concession, given that trade talks will only follow the political settlement.

Funny. A month ago, Davis was telling all and sundry that the sequencing was "the first big row of the summer". On the first day, he caves.

Better lube up, UK.

[Guff Daddy]

2nd concession: no lube