Deal or No Deal - Brexit or No Brexit

[PhotoLady]

Deal or No Deal

Taxpayers' money will not be spent on preparing for a "no-deal" Brexit until the "very last moment", Chancellor Philip Hammond has suggested.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41577065

AND.....

Theresa May won't say if she'd vote for Brexit now

An interesting interview yesterday with LBC - I think the question took her by surprise given that look.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41576098

Would you vote differently now?
I'm not saying there should be a second referendum but knowing what we know now, is your opinion the same as it was prior to 23 June 2016.

[boycott]

At PMQ Mrs May didn't need to say what she would vote in a second referendum as she was very clear that the UK will NOT be having a second referendum and that the UK will leave the EU in March 2019.

[Jimgward]

There have been a growing number of very negative reports on UK trade recently, and forecasts are not good.... wont help Brexit at all....

[Royal]

As suspected, Michel Barnier was given a restrictive mandate which even he is uncomfortable with and wishes to change. Again, as suspected, it is mainly Germany which is responsible for the intransigence. A rather interesting article from yesterdays Times:

Will the European Union give Michel Barnier the negotiating freedom he needs to do a Brexit deal? And if it does not, will the EU’s “Article 50” process fail this December, taking Britain and Europe into totally uncharted waters? The fifth round of Brexit talks are at a complete standstill today amid frustration at the restrictive mandate given to Mr Barnier and the intransigence of Germany. Both David Davis, the Brexit secretary, and the urbane Frenchman who is the EU’s lead negotiator are waiting to see whether Europe’s leaders will loosen his mandate next week to allow him to explore a Brexit transition. There is frustration in most European capitals including London that Mr Barnier’s ten pages of negotiating “guidelines”, with their rigid sequencing of “withdrawal” first and “transition and trade” second, are too restrictive and could jeopardise the whole process.

If the EU fails to budge then Theresa May faces humiliation, having gambled that the major concessions made in her Florence speech would be met with compromises from European leaders, allowing Mr Barnier to talk transition. With pessimism growing over the prospect of a breakthrough at a summit next week, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, warned that without one in the next two months “then, together with our UK friends, we will have to think about where we are heading”.

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, had expected to receive an answer this week on his offer to allow European nationals the right to return to the UK after breaking residence for long periods in return for Britons being allowed cross-border “onward movement” residency rights within the EU. The offer, made on September 28, stated: “The UK is prepared to offer more generous arrangements [than the letter of EU law] . . . a guaranteed right of return for those who have acquired permanent residence status. This offer is subject to addressing the question of further free movement of UK nationals across the EU27.” At the time of writing, diplomatic sources said that Mr Barnier had not been able to provide a response because his mandate did not explicitly cover the question. He is deeply frustrated that his hands are tied, according an MEP who met him last week.

Meanwhile Mr Davis is annoyed and humiliated after making a major concession on a politically sensitive question. He is now understandably reluctant, a source said, to provoke Eurosceptics by giving details, especially in writing, of how EU residency rights would have “direct effect” in British law — a huge concession last month — via the jurisprudence of European courts.
Germany principally, but with France and Romania in train, has blocked any loosening of Mr Barnier’s mandate, slapping him down at a meeting of EU ambassadors last Friday and adding yet more restrictions to his negotiating brief.

Berlin has demanded a written guarantee of Mrs May’s Florence promise to “honour [EU spending] commitments we have made during the period of our membership”, a new requirement that is extremely difficult for the British side. “Germany expects the position to be put on paper,” a diplomat said. Mrs May’s language in her speech had been agreed in advance with Mr Barnier and both he and Mr Davis feel that the bar has been raised and the goalposts moved.
Talks on the border in Ireland are going well, with drafting started on a common travel area agreement. The customs/border question is not being seen as barrier to moving on in the negotiations.

Time is running out to talk transition. Mr Barnier wants the freedom to begin “scoping” out a deal this month so that when the details of withdrawal issues, the money and the role of EU courts are settled in December agreement is more or less done. This would means that early next year the detail of transitional arrangements preventing a cliff-edge for businesses after Brexit in 2019 would finalised and agreed.

As Philip Hammond, the chancellor, pointed out yesterday, time is running out. “A transitional arrangement is a wasting asset. It has a value today. It will still have a very high value at Christmas, early in the new year,” he said. “But as we move through 2018 its value to everybody will diminish significantly. I think our European partners need to think very carefully about the need for speed in order to protect the potential value to all of us of having an interim period.

Mr Barnier will again wrestle with EU ambassadors over his mandate tomorrow and make a pitch to Europe ministers on Tuesday. “I would be surprised if there is enough ground for us to change the mandate,” a senior EU diplomat said. “But this is one for leaders; it’s above Brussels pay grades.” Without any movement at the European Council next Thursday Mrs May could be pushed into walking out of Brexit negotiations, raising the prospect of a “no deal” scenario and disorderly Brexit.

[Jimgward]

Doesnt’t Make good reading.....

[Royal]

To use Michel Barniers phrase - The clock is ticking.

It’s ticking for EU businesses and industries which will all stand to lose big time if no deal is agreed. The weak pound will also hurt the EU far more than the UK if tariffs are applied after Brexit.

The sticking point is just money. Filthy lucre! They seem to ignore Theresa Mays commitment that the UK will honour all its financial obligations. They want more, including a never ending obligation to subsidise the poorer Eastern European member states - and they want it in writing.

No way José!

Article 50 is quite simple. It doesn’t include any reference to financial obligations which the EU are insisting on. It does, however, include reference to negotiating the future relationship between the leaving state and the remaining EU which is being ignored.

No surprise there, then...

[Firefly]

Royal

Quite so, so why for Heaven's sake aren't the politicians saying just that to Barnier ?

Jackie

[Royal]

I’m pretty certain that our politicians have been saying that all along. We had a civil servant during Round 3 give a legal breakdown, line by painful line, of why legally our financial obligations cease with Brexit. Theresa May then actually made a significant concession by stating in Florence that the UK was prepared to pay enough to ensure that no other EU country would have to pay more between now and the end of the current EU budget round in 2020.

It has all fallen on deaf ears.

Germany has insisted that a divorce bill be settled before anything else is discussed. Forget what Article 50 actually requires - we now see what we knew all along. An intransigent Germany pulling the strings.

The BBC are now reporting that EU27 are preparing to talk about future trade deals with the UK without the UK being involved whilst Juncker is now using the analogy of the UK buying a round of 28 pints in a pub but leaving without paying for them. You couldn’t make this up.

Such narrow minded thinking will only serve to reinforce the views of Brexiteers and swing the views of many Remainers.

[exodus]

Time for UK to just walk away. Write and tell EU that and say no money will be paid to the EU for UK to leave.
Tell them WTO rules will apply from 29th March, 2019.
Then (1) count the money being saved for the UK taxpayer by stopping this nonsense.
and (2) wait for the phone to ring!
Amos.
(and UK is not even my country and it is obvious to me what they should be doing).

[Poppy]

Hi Amos - would be interested to know which country you come from if you are willing to share. I do know we have various nationalities on this Forum and it is always good to see things from their point of view. For instance JEBA is German and will always show things from a different perspective in any debate.

[kingfisher]

Read this and you’ll see why Germany, France and a few others would like 100 billion from the good ol’ UK before she departs. [BTW, the UK NPL ratio according to EU stats is 2.7%, one of the lowest in EU.]:

“FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German and French banks have together amassed almost 230 billion euros (205.16 billion pounds) of bad loans, according to regulators' data, underscoring the scale of a problem often linked solely to Italy that is now causing worry across the region. The tally puts the combined total of problem loans in the euro zone's largest economies, France and Germany, close to that of Italy's 260 billion euro bad debt pile. It lays bare the extent of the pan-European problem although it is far easier for banks in France and Germany to cope with because bad debts there account for a smaller proportion of overall credit.
After Italy, which had bad loans of 262 billion euros at the end of March, the biggest pockets of debt not repaid over roughly three months are found consecutively in France, Spain, Greece, Germany and the Netherlands. France has 160 billion euros, while Spain has 139 billion euros and Germany 69 billion euros. The picture alters when measuring the proportion of loans that are bad. Greece is worst, where almost one in two loans have not been serviced in three months, according to the European Banking Authority. In Italy and Ireland, roughly one eighth of loans are soured, compared with less than 4 percent in France.
The European Central Bank has encountered stiff resistance in the European Parliament not only from Italian but also German lawmakers to its attempts to clean up Europe's $1 trillion bad loans mountain.
It is emerging as the biggest challenge yet to the ECB as banks supervisor.”
[REUTERS]

[exodus]

Hi Amos - would be interested to know which country you come from if you are willing to share. I do know we have various nationalities on this Forum and it is always good to see things from their point of view. For instance JEBA is German and will always show things from a different perspective in any debate.

My posts tell you, read my profile!
Amos.

[Poppy]

Ah silly me -got it thank you! You may well be a first!