The Brexit Thread

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

See that's the problem with using the world "Neoliberal" without really defining it very well. The ERG are at least as much motivated by extremist economic libertarianism, as they are by xenophobia. It's their voters that are more into that. and if you listen to their solutions to the Irish Border situation, it becomes abundantly clear that their aim isn't just to leave the EU, but break it up on their way out the door. They say that there will be no border in Ireland because the UK won't impose any tariffs and the EU won't either. Essentially the EU will give up on the integrity of the Customs union leading to its inevitable collapse. Their objection to rules made in Brussels only make sense if you think of it in terms of there being any meaningful regulation of business. People like Jacob Rees Mogg aren't necessarily xenophobic, some of their biggest financial backers are foreign billionaires. The aim of taking back control isn't that the UK will turn into a nation of village assemblies that decide all decisions through participatory democracy. They just want control of the regulations governing the City of London. This is why they talk about turning Britain into the Singapore of Europe. They just want to free hedge funds from the dead hand of regulation and protect London's position at the centre of the global tax laundry network and they don't care how many people starve. They are prepared to sacrifice the legitimate side of the City to achieve this.

The Thing is that the only way you can regulate the activities of large companies, and tax companies or crack down on international tax evasion, and regulate the financial sector in any meaningful way is to co-ordinate on a european level. There have already been substantial changes to how businesses are taxed, and the last seven years have been spent eliminating loopholes, and getting everyone's tax law to line up a lot better. This whole process would be moving a lot faster if the individual countries weren't so slow to move on with this process. It's almost like some of them don't really want to discommode large companies in any way, or regulate the banks.

This is just another example of an English person confusing the English political bubble with the rest of the world. Never trust the writings of someone on the left who would sooner smash up the system, than use the system to tax the rich. Either they're thick as pigshit, or they're in it for the destruction.

[Nefertiti2]

Which person is saying they want to smash up the system. Gilbert is wondering whether the left - or democracy -can win. And Ireland may have moved on social issues. On economic issues its more corrupt than ever,

[Nefertiti2]

The neoliberal consensus includes the Irish government wanting to find a way to return the tax to Apple that the EU was making them charge. It's also turning a blind eye to Dutch and Luxemburg and Irish corruption- and English corruption too, come to that.

[Lang Spoon]

Ireland Luxembourg and Netherlands have all operated as satellites around the Great Wen however. It's the corrupt model centered on The City and British Overseas Territories that allowed these states to facilitate moving funds offshore etc.

[ad hoc]

Not sure if this is the right thread but it seems to have become the UK politics one for now.

'I've absolutely had enough': Tory MP embarks on anti-austerity tour

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...y_to_clipboard

Heidi Allen is my mum's MP (just had to edit that sentence.) and she seems really excellent. A good constituency MP as well as as woke as any tory is. My mum's met her a couple of times and the second time reported what both me and my brother had said after the first time "why is she a bloody Tory?". Allen smiled apparently (but obviously didn't resign the whip)

[Snake Plissken]

Ah yes. Heidi Allen. Who hates the welfare policies so much that she er, votes for them every single time.

She makes Soubry look principled.

[Snake Plissken]

Or, I'll just copy and paste my thoughts from elsewhere.

Yes. That fucking Heidi fucking Allen who every few months pops up to complain about austerity and its effect on the poor and then fucking goes to the fucking House of Commons to fucking vote for more of it.

Alongside Frank Field. The Tories might have implemented austerity but they were pushing at an open door, unlocked by Frank fucking Field. The same Frank fucking Field who was tasked by the last couple of Labour Governments to figure out welfare "reforms". The same Frank fucking Field who is pushing for Brexit which will hit the poorest in the society.

Number of words in the article pointing the total and utter hypocrisy of these two fucking cunts: Zero.

[Ginger Yellow]

Taking back control, by, um, not regulating foreign financial services firms in the UK.

[Sporting]

Paywall alert.

[Nefertiti2]

the UK should be able to strike financial services “passporting” deals beyond Europe, allowing the City of London to offset lost access to the EU single market post-Brexit, according to the chair of the Commons Treasury select committee. “Passporting applies with the EU and that will end with Brexit,” Nicky Morgan told the Financial Times. “But why couldn’t passporting apply to other countries around the world that share our high regulatory standards?” She was speaking ahead of the Treasury committee on Friday launching an inquiry into the future of the UK’s financial services industry after Brexit. The committee said it would examine “what the government’s financial services priorities should be when it negotiates the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU and third countries”. Passporting is a crucial mechanism in the current UK-EU relationship, allowing finance companies to sell their services from one member state right across the bloc. The City has become the dominant hub for such sales but it is braced for the end of passporting when the UK leaves the EU, and long term market access arrangements between the two sides are due to be thrashed out as part of a future relationship agreement. Ms Morgan said the Treasury committee’s job was “to hold regulators and the City to account but also to highlight the City’s challenges and opportunities”. “We need to remind government of how important financial services are to our economy,” she added. City figures welcomed news of the Treasury committee’s inquiry, after months of frustration at prime minister Theresa May’s stance, both towards business and over what is at stake for the City as a result of Brexit. Miles Celic, chief executive of The CityUK, an umbrella lobby group that represents banks, asset managers and insurance companies, said: “It’s absolutely right that the [Treasury committee] is looking at this. It’s crucial that parliament, government, industry and regulators work together.” Recommended Warning signs for the global economy London’s financial sector will take a knock in 2019 Until last summer, the government and the City had been united in pushing for a post-Brexit financial services regulatory regime based on a concept dubbed “mutual recognition”. Under these market access arrangements, the UK and the EU would recognise each other’s rules covering finance companies, but there would be room for the two sides’ regulation to diverge. But after pushback from Brussels, the UK and EU finalised a political declaration on future relations last November that proposed an “equivalence” regime that would ensure market access only if the two sides’ rules remained broadly aligned. This angered many in the City, including some UK regulators who feared becoming Brussels’ “rule-takers”. The Treasury committee’s inquiry came as the UK and Switzerland signed an agreement to allow their insurance companies to access each other’s markets after Brexit. The relationship is currently governed by a deal between the EU and Switzerland that will cease to apply to the UK after it leaves the bloc. The new deal, struck between chancellor Philip Hammond and his Swiss counterpart Ueli Maurer, replicates the EU agreement by allowing for mutual recognition of insurance regulation between the UK and Switzerland.

[ursus arctos]

The US Hedgies aren’t funding them out of respect for their principles.

[Ginger Yellow]

The US Hedgies aren’t funding them out of respect for their principles.

The US is surely not going to agree reciprocal passporting, and I don't thin even Morgan is proposing to do it unilaterally.

[ursus arctos]

I'm not sure that this particular type of Brit would insist on reciprocity.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The neoliberal consensus includes the Irish government wanting to find a way to return the tax to Apple that the EU was making them charge. It's also turning a blind eye to Dutch and Luxemburg and Irish corruption- and English corruption too, come to that.

See this is the problem with using that word. He's using it to describe people who support membership of the European Union, which is forcing Apple to pay this tax. You're using it to describe the member states that are trying to avoid taxing the huge multinational companies that have them by the balls. It can't be both. He would be far more accurate in using it to describe the people who want to turn the UK into the Singapore and to cheat on the rules of the single market. Also there needs to be a better word for this. Ireland embarked down the FDI route 60 years ago, and none of those people could be described as liberals of any sort. The Issue in question here isn't that the Irish Govt don't believe in taxing companies, the issue is that if Ireland tried to levy any tax whatsoever on Apple, they'd just move their factory to somewhere else in the European Union, and take the 7,000 jobs out of Cork. They made this pretty explicit. also pretty true of the UK, but of a wide variety of countries all across the European Union. This is the Dynamic that the European Union is aiming to end.


Which person is saying they want to smash up the system. Gilbert is wondering whether the left - or democracy -can win. And Ireland may have moved on social issues. On economic issues its more corrupt than ever,

It's not so much that he's explicitly saying "smash up the system" he's saying "We should focus on building up the movement, to hegemonize the situation, while the system gets smashed into the ground in the background." Now either he's unaware of the degree to which 'the system' is going to get smashed, in which case he's a dangerous idiot, or he's aware of the degree but is instead focused on building up the movement rather than trying to stop this, in which case it's something a lot darker. Either he doesn't grasp the sheer magnitude of the disaster about to engulf the UK, or he thinks this is an opportunity. And the only difference between voting for the withdrawal deal, or voting against it without stopping Brexit is the speed at which the system gets smashed.

And what the hell does the last bit mean? You do know right, that virtually every single Irish person is aware that we're a corporate tax haven? But we're also aware that a) everyone else does this and b) If we unilaterally stop, it will have zero positive effect because these companies will just move and not pay tax in another country. what we have been doing in the background is taking part in the process of gradually, and systematically tightening regulations on a European wide basis, with the result that corporate tax receipts are the new Property bubble taxes baby. I don't know if Virtually everyone in the UK knows that the UK is a corporate tax haven, and the centre of the global tax evasion network.

[Nefertiti2]

See this is the problem with using that word. He's using it to describe people who support membership of the European Union, which is forcing Apple to pay this tax. You're using it to describe the member states that are trying to avoid taxing the huge multinational companies that have them by the balls. It can't be both. He would be far more accurate in using it to describe the people who want to turn the UK into the Singapore and to cheat on the rules of the single market. Also there needs to be a better word for this. Ireland embarked down the FDI route 60 years ago, and none of those people could be described as liberals of any sort. The Issue in question here isn't that the Irish Govt don't believe in taxing companies, the issue is that if Ireland tried to levy any tax whatsoever on Apple, they'd just move their factory to somewhere else in the European Union, and take the 7,000 jobs out of Cork. They made this pretty explicit. also pretty true of the UK, but of a wide variety of countries all across the European Union. This is the Dynamic that the European Union is aiming to end.


Which person is saying they want to smash up the system. Gilbert is wondering whether the left - or democracy -can win. And Ireland may have moved on social issues. On economic issues its more corrupt than ever,

It's not so much that he's explicitly saying "smash up the system" he's saying "We should focus on building up the movement, to hegemonize the situation, while the system gets smashed into the ground in the background." Now either he's unaware of the degree to which 'the system' is going to get smashed, in which case he's a dangerous idiot, or he's aware of the degree but is instead focused on building up the movement rather than trying to stop this, in which case it's something a lot darker. Either he doesn't grasp the sheer magnitude of the disaster about to engulf the UK, or he thinks this is an opportunity. And the only difference between voting for the withdrawal deal, or voting against it without stopping Brexit is the speed at which the system gets smashed.

And what the hell does the last bit mean? You do know right, that virtually every single Irish person is aware that we're a corporate tax haven? But we're also aware that a) everyone else does this and b) If we unilaterally stop, it will have zero positive effect because these companies will just move and not pay tax in another country. what we have been doing in the background is taking part in the process of gradually, and systematically tightening regulations on a European wide basis, with the result that corporate tax receipts are the new Property bubble taxes baby. I don't know if Virtually everyone in the UK knows that the UK is a corporate tax haven, and the centre of the global tax evasion network.

Your argument is getting slightly incoherent. You're saying it's Ok for Ireland to be a corporate tax haven because everybody in Ireland knows you're a corporate tax haven and anyway everyone else in the EU is doing it? But the EU is also stopping doing it.

Meanwhile it's wrong for the left in England who don't know if they can win a General Election - given First Past The Post amongst other things- to build a movement. If the system is going to be smashed there is precisely fuck all that Gilbert r anyone else can do about it- they can build an activist network which can organise and campaign about retaining EU membership and corporate tax evasion- which has only been raised in the UK by the very groups you despise.

[Flynnie]

Sir Ivan Rogers Brexit lecture - text and video

Read this whole thing and it is very good.

Rogers's four key lessons going forward:

First, Article 50 can, for all its oddities, probably can work as an exit route.

(what he's saying here is that A50 didn't cause the UK's problems with Brexit, those were created by the Government, the process with which it hasn't dealt with the deluded, etc)

Second, we have to understand how the EU works and negotiates, because we shall, like it or not, not ever be floating free of ties and responsibilities in the mid-Atlantic.

This is pretty self-evident, in both what he means and how badly the UK has failed to grasp this.

Third, baselines – where you start from - matter in negotiations.

Lancaster House will go as one of the great self-owns in British political history, likely egged on by May's transparent bigotry against foreigners.

Fourth and finally, one cannot rule out an extension of Article 50.

Rogers says the clock has run out for any sort of orderly exit, and an extension isn't even a given as the EU and the 27 are sick of the UK. But things can change if people are prepared to wake up and smell the coffee.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

"Hey all you labour party members who thought that the leadership were going to eventually come around to the position of the majority of our members..... we fucked you. We fucked you and didn't even have to buy you dinner. We fucked you and secretly filmed it and have been sharing the video on our whatsapp groups. We're more worried about upsetting the angry morons who don't understand how referendums work, than alienating our membership base. . They're the people we're really interested in. Fuck you."

[Tubby Isaacs]

More from Dad's Army.

https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1088775610141421568

[johnr]

"Hey all you labour party members who thought that the leadership were going to eventually come around to the position of the majority of our members..... we fucked you. We fucked you and didn't even have to buy you dinner. We fucked you and secretly filmed it and have been sharing the video on our whatsapp groups. We're more worried about upsetting the angry morons who don't understand how referendums work, than alienating our membership base. . They're the people we're really interested in. Fuck you."

Is that the fella who in the linked article says 'The amendment matches the unanimous policy of last September’s conference almost word for word, including, if all else fails to break the deadlock, the option of a public vote.'? Hm, I think it is.

Best not to speak for 'the majority of our members' (as defined by a whole bunch of push-polling, skilfully dissected by Professor Curtice the other day) TAB, unless you join the Labour International organisation and get involved yourself.

[johnr]

I think that the thing is, TAB - and I mean this with respect, cos you're brilliant on so many parts of this board - that for somebody who rightly repeatedly points out that people/politicians in the UK don't get how bad their/our undertstanding of the EU appears to those outside the UK, you've got a remarkable lack of understanding of the political realities here in the UK. Like many others, Corbyn is to you both useless, and a potential saviour, able to conjure up all sorts of realities out of the most febrile mess. He's actually somewhere in between. (And just to reiterate, this is about Starmer too.)

I'm a Labour member in 'Remain Central' - Caroline Lucas's constituency - and I can tell you that, even here, members understand the point of, and thinking behind, the conference vote. You're of course at liberty to say 'they're all fools', but please stop claiming that the majority of members have been duped. It's a load of misdirectional bollocks, I'm afraid.

[E10 Rifle]

What he said.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The language there from Lavery is pure Kipper. "Vote until they give the right answer", that's exactly what pub bores say about Ireland and the Lisbon Treaty.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Your argument is getting slightly incoherent. You're saying it's Ok for Ireland to be a corporate tax haven because everybody in Ireland knows you're a corporate tax haven and anyway everyone else in the EU is doing it? But the EU is also stopping doing it.

No, I'm saying that the level of political sophistication of the average voter here is that of a particularly self interested 13 year old adolescent, who talks a good game about fairness, but is brutally focused on their own short term self interest, and not afraid to throw a massive fucking tantrum if they don't get their own way or don't like something. While the level of political sophistication of the typical UK voter and politician is more on the level of a six year old who shoves crayons up their nose. This isn't because the underlying people are in any way different, it's because UK poltiical culture is inward looking, delusional, embarrassing and deliberately stupifying. Hence Brexit. Small Countries can't afford to have a political culture as absurd or as introverted or stupid as the one in the UK, because we tried that, we tried that to the point of destruction, and that leads to fucking disaster and total collapse. This is a lesson that the UK is about to learn. It's a brutal, painful and savage lesson to learn, but it seems that the UK is going to have to stick its whole hand into the fire in order to learn the lesson.

Also That statement isn't contradictory. It's just that we know that every country operates in exactly the same way, we just started before everyone else. First up Best dressed, and all that. We know that us unilaterally doing something isn't going to change anything, but we're not that averse to a gradual tightening up of the rules. We didn't arrive at this position by adherence to Neo-liberal ideology, whatever that may be. We arrived at this position because back in the fifties while the UK was desperately trying to cling onto as much of its empire as it possibly could, and retaining as much of the old economic system based on the captive empire market as possible, we had nothing, other than the dim awareness that you could make just about anything, anywhere, and transport it to everywhere. so why not do it here. This wasn't new to us, Thanks to our near neighbour, we'd been doing a variation of this since the 1650's. This is an old game, with slightly changed rules.

This isn't a function of ideology. This is a function of the invention of the Cargo Container. We started out with a moderately well educated work force who saw relatively low wages by western european standards as unimaginable wealth, so we started out making relatively unsophisticated labour intensive products, and shipping them tariff free to England. We joined the European Union in pursuit of this strategy, because it allowed us access to more markets, making us a more attractive destination for this type of investment. Then those industries died a death in the face of imports from Asia, so we moved one step up the production ladder, and started attracting companies that made more complicated things, and paid better.

Meanwhile it's wrong for the left in England who don't know if theycan win a General Election - given First Past The Post amongst other things to build a movement. If the sytem is going to be smashed there is precisely fuck allt hat Gilbert r anyone else can do about it- they can build an activist network which can organise and campaign about EU emmebrship and corprorate tax evasion- which has been raised inthe UK by the very groups you despise.

"There is a perfectly avoidable iceberg on our current course, but it's too much hassle to get the captain to even try and change course, he's more worried that some of the passengers are going to be more offended by any deviation from our course set in harbour, than by drowning at sea. So lets rearrange the fucking deckchairs instead, and start preparing for life in the lifeboats. I'm sure there's going to be enough lifeboats right?"

[Nefertiti2]

What;'s necessary is informed analysis instead of abuse. As you don't seem to be capable of the former and overindulge in the latter I see no point in continuing to engage with you on here on this subject.

[ursus arctos]

Nef, is something up with your keyboard?

There seem to be extraneous characters in most of your recent posts (see, e.g., the semi colon in "What's" above)