Brexit - The UK referendum on leaving the EU - Reneging, reshmeging!

[Bomberboyokay]

A FTA with the US would mean that these people could work for US based banks that will open offices in London.

Back of the queue

 

[Todman]

Back of the queue

Don't believe Obama's bullshit. When there is a dollar to be made Americans are not slow.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Don't believe Obama's bullshit. When there is a dollar to be made Americans are not slow.

Comrade Hillary or protectionist Führer Trump isn't going to treat the British-declared "Special Relationship" any more literally than the 12 post-WW2 presidents before them.

 

[Happy Mastenator]

A FTA with the US would mean that these people could work for US based banks that will open offices in London.

The US banks already have offices in London, the question is why would they want them there if London loses it's EU passport...

 

[Bomberboyokay]

The US banks already have offices in London, the question is why would they want them there if London loses it's EU passport...

something something Commonwealth of Nations [even though that's neither a political or economic union]

 

[Mofra]

The US banks already have offices in London, the question is why would they want them there if London loses it's EU passport...

The FTSE & LME are still incredibly influential markets.

 

[Happy Mastenator]

The FTSE & LME are still incredibly influential markets.

But they already have offices there, there won't be new people moving there, those working in the Euro market at those banks may have to move though.

 

[Freo Big Fella]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...uit-vegetable-harvests-national-farmers-union

June: "Der terk err jerbs!"
July: "On second thoughts, may we have a special dispensation for our cheap labour source?"

 

[Chief]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...uit-vegetable-harvests-national-farmers-union

June: "Der terk err jerbs!"
July: "On second thoughts, may we have a special dispensation for our cheap labour source?"

Cannot produce "affordable" fruit.

It isn't that no local workers will do the job, not enough will do it for low wages.

 

[tandino]

something something Commonwealth of Nations [even though that's neither a political or economic union]

Let's get the band back together. The UK, Canada, Australia, maybe we can even take back Hong Kong. WTF do we need the Germans for anyway.

 

[Always Ballin]

What a triumph for the sovereignty of the people Brexit was. People were celebrating on the streets like the great war had just ended. It was a sight to behold. FREEDOM!



YAAAAAAAAAAAAAWHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Britain cannot easily dismiss Japanese Brexit warning letter

If non-EU countries’ economic interests continue to be threatened, 15-page report may well be the first of many warning shots

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

Sunday 4 September 2016 17.19 BST

The Japanese government’s letter setting out its Brexit demands is deeply troubling to the UK since it is clear Japanese companies want Theresa May to negotiate a deal that leaves Britain not just in the EU customs union, and single market, but also retains a free flow of workers between the EU and the UK.

The British government could not possibly accede to these demands if May’s mantra that Brexit means Brexit is to mean anything. Yet the Japanese requests – set out in a 15-page memo – are likely to become the benchmark by which many countries with strong economic ties to the UK will judge the outcome of the talks.

Above all, the Japanese memo underlines that the UK is not only negotiating bilaterally with the EU commission and council of ministers, but with many other foreign firms that have invested in the UK, each of which is quite capable of upping sticks in the next phase of their investment cycle.

The fear for Downing Street is that other non-EU countries – under internal pressure from their business communities – will now follow the Japanese example and publicly set out the parameters of an acceptable deal from the point of view of their UK-based companies. China, for instance, is not known for its diplomatic subtlety when commercial interests are at stake. Other countries in east Asia may also make their views known.

Moreover, there is little downside for Brussels if during the talks third parties such as Japan warn the UK that unless it is flexible over the single market, consequences will follow.

The additional difficulty for May is timing. Her government is still far from united in its demands and is playing a long game by remaining studiously vague about the deal she is targeting. Bland reassurance has been May’s strategic goal so far.

The Japanese demands blow that strategy apart by being very specific. It says: “What Japanese businesses in Europe most wish to avoid is the situation in which they are unable to discern clearly the way the negotiations are going, only grasping the whole picture at the last minute. It is imperative that the outcome is free of unpleasant surprises and reducing the risks emanating from uncertainty.”

In effect Japan is trying to force the UK to show its hand, something five House of Lords EU select committees will also start to seek to achieve this week when they begin a coordinated grilling of ministers and experts across the whole Brexit field.

Nor can the UK government easily dismiss the report’s status. A working group chaired by Koichi Hagiuda, deputy chief cabinet secretary and a former aide to the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, compiled the 15-page set of demands.

Hagiuda served Abe from 2013 to 2015 as the special adviser to the president of the Liberal Democratic party and, as such, intimately represents the thinking of the Japanese government and business.

The Japanese insist they are not telling a sovereign power how to negotiate, but just defending Japanese interests. Japanese firms, after all, employ about 140,000 workers in the UK, with Nomura bank, manufacturing corporation Hitachi and carmakers Honda, Nissan and Toyota all having large bases in the country.

Nevertheless the UK government was ill-prepared for the intervention. Although the report was published in Japan on Friday and sent to Downing Street in advance of publication, its contents seem to have come as a shock on Sunday to a government expecting such lobbying to be conducted in private. May is likely to discuss the report at a meeting with Abe on Monday.

The warning in the covering letter to the UK government could not be clearer. It says: “Japanese businesses with their European headquarters in the UK may decide to transfer their head-office function to continental Europe if EU laws cease to be applicable in the UK after its withdrawal.”

In particular, the document emphasises Japanese firms fear for their future potential to export from Britain to third countries because of trade privileges within the EU single market around “rules of origin”.

“Brexit would make such products unable to meet the rules of origin as EU products, which means that Japanese companies operating in the EU would not be able to enjoy the benefit of the free trade areas concluded by the EU,” the report says.

It also calls on the UK to “maintain access to workers who are nationals of the UK or the EU,” saying the European labour market could suffer great turmoil if EU nationals could not freely travel between the UK and continental Europe.

Japanese banks will move their European HQs out of London if the Brexit negotiations fail to secure the financial services passport to operate in the EU, the report says. “If Japanese financial institutions are unable to maintain the single passport obtained in the UK, they would face difficulties in their business operations in the EU and might have to acquire corporate status within the EU anew and obtain the passport again, or to relocate their operations from the UK to existing establishments in the EU,” it says.

None of these demands are totally new, but to see them spelled out in such an ambitious way by such an important investor in the UK underlines the economic interests at stake. If those interests continue to be threatened, do not expect the normal diplomatic niceties to apply. This letter may well be the first of many warning shots.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/04/britain-japanese-brexit-letter-eu

 

[Happy Mastenator]

Britain cannot easily dismiss Japanese Brexit warning letter

Least surprising news of the day.

EU has an incentive now to screw Britain hard in negotiations for leaving, as they know that there would be a massive flow of jobs from Britain across into Europe.

 

[Pessimistic]

Congratulations on becoming PM, now kindly hold your hand behind you so we can tie it in place.

 

[Sainteric]

The US banks already have offices in London, the question is why would they want them there if London loses it's EU passport...

There are a number of reason why the city is the largest financial centre in the world, for most being part of the EU is not a major reason. Banks in the UK are allowed to do a whole lot of things that they cant do in the US and would not be able to do many of them in Paris or Berlin.

 

[FPPF]

Let's get the band back together. The UK, Canada, Australia, maybe we can even take back Hong Kong. WTF do we need the Germans for anyway.

There's always a need for a boogeyman

 

[showdownhero]

Poms should just go the way of the Irish and offer insanely unethical massive tax breaks to anyone willing to open an office

 

[Power Raid]

There are a number of reason why the city is the largest financial centre in the world, for most being part of the EU is not a major reason. Banks in the UK are allowed to do a whole lot of things that they cant do in the US and would not be able to do many of them in Paris or Berlin.

yep.

the reasons why the banks are there is because of the loose anti-money laundering laws and the fact the UK doesn't use the Euro

 

[medusala]

But they already have offices there, there won't be new people moving there, those working in the Euro market at those banks may have to move though.

Doubt it. Passporting isnt as big an issue as people make out. The same was said when the EURO came in, ie everything would move to Frankfurt. The opposite happened ie Commerzbank, Dresdner, Deutsche expanded in the UK.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Theresa May limbers up for a hard Brexit

September 20, 2016 Martin Wolf

"Brexit means Brexit.” As circular as it is concise, this three-word sentence tells us much about the style of Theresa May, the UK prime minister. I take this to mean that the UK will, in her view, formally leave the EU, without the option of a second referendum or a parliamentary override. If so, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the outcome will be “hard Brexit”.

By “hard Brexit” I mean a departure not only from the EU but also from the customs union and the single market. The UK should, however, end up with a free-trade arrangement that covers goods and possibly some parts of services and, one hopes, liberal travel arrangements. But the “passporting” of UK-based financial institutions would end and London would cease to be the EU’s unrivalled financial capital. The UK and the EU would also impose controls on their nationals’ ability to work in one another’s economies.

This is not the outcome many desire. As the Japanese government has made brutally clear, many Japanese businesses invested in the UK in the justified belief that the latter would provide a stable base for trade with the rest of the EU on terms as favourable as those available to producers anywhere else. These businesses are understandably worried about their prospects. The same applies to many others whose plans were made on the assumption that the UK had a settled policy of staying inside the EU.

“Hard Brexit” would disrupt their plans. Should the UK leave the customs union and enter a free-trade agreement with the EU, rules of origin would apply to exports of goods from the UK to the EU. This standard bureaucratic procedure would be needed to ensure that imports into the UK did not become a route to circumvent the EU’s external tariff. Rules of origin would put UK-based exporters at a disadvantage vis-à-vis those based in the EU. The same would be true for, in particular, banks should the UK leave the single market.

Why then is a hard Brexit the most likely outcome? My belief rests on the view that this UK government will not seek to reverse the result of the vote and that it will feel obliged to impose controls on immigration from the EU and to free itself from the bloc’s regulations overseen by its judicial processes.

Continued membership of the customs union or the single market, from outside the EU, would deprive the UK of legislative autonomy. The former would mean it could not adopt its own trade policy. The latter would mean accepting all regulations relating to the single market, without possessing any say on them, continuing with free movement of labour, and, probably, paying budget contributions. A country that has rejected membership is not going to accept so humiliating an alternative. It would be a state of dependence far worse than continued EU membership.

The only reasonable alternative to hard Brexit would be to stay inside the EU. Parliament is constitutionally entitled to ignore the vote result. The people could also be asked if they wanted to change their minds. But the Conservatives would surely follow Labour into ruin if they tried to reverse the outcome. Their Brexiters would go berserk.

Of course, it is logically possible that the EU might alter the terms of engagement. It might, for example, change its mind on the sacred status of free movement. If it had done so, the referendum would surely have had a different result. But this now looks near inconceivable.

If “hard Brexit” is, indeed, the destination, the aim must be to get there with the minimum of damage to both sides. Some Brexiters propose that the UK should simply repeal the European Communities Act, rather than go through Article 50. That would violate its treaty obligations. Such egregious treaty breaking would hardly be a helpful precursor to the negotiation of new trade agreements.

It is essential for the UK’s future to go through the formal process of negotiating a departure. But, as Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform notes, that will be just one of six tough negotiations. The others will be: an ultimate trade pact with the EU; an interim agreement with the bloc, to cover the period between exit and the longer-term deal; re-entry into the World Trade Organisation as a full member; new arrangements with the 50 or so countries that now have an accord with the EU and, presumably, with additional countries, too, such as the US and China; and, finally, UK-EU ties in foreign and defence policy, police and judicial co-operation and counter-terrorism.

Make no mistake, this is going to take years. A decision to adopt unilateral free trade, proposed by some Brexiters, would simplify this. It will not happen.

In all this, the crucial negotiation, to accompany talks under Article 50, is over transitional arrangements, to ensure the UK does not lose all preferential access to EU markets upon leaving.

Ideally, this deal should be some sort of “free trade plus”. How much it could be “plus” depends on flexibility on both sides, especially over free movement. In practice, it would probably not be very plus. But the UK government should state that it will not trigger Article 50 until the EU agrees to discuss a transitional agreement that, ideally, would be close to a final one.

Do I like this outcome? No. I would like a government prepared to overturn the referendum. Nothing has changed my view that the UK is making a huge economic and strategic blunder. The country is going to be meaner and poorer. David Cameron will go down as one of the worst prime ministers in UK history. But the halfway houses between membership of the EU and hard Brexit are uninhabitable. So what now has to be done is to move to the miserable new dispensation as smoothly as possible.

The UK has chosen a largely illusory autonomy over EU membership. That has consequences. It will have to accept this grim reality and move as quickly as it can to whatever the future holds.

https://www.ft.com/content/3328547a-7e3d-11e6-bc52-0c7211ef3198

 

[Gough]

Thatcher mark II, she'll use this as an excuse for more cuts. No doubt she's already fervent wank fodder for a new generation of sexually repressed Tories.

 

[FootyJunkie]

"Brexit means Brexit".... just like a mum saying "Bedtime is Bedtime" when the kids continue to stay up

 

[medusala]

Thatcher mark II, she'll use this as an excuse for more cuts.

Well someone has to undo the damage done by Blair and Brown. Deficit is still circa 4% gdp, way too high (and debt as % gdp way too high as well)

Meanwhile an admitted marxist is shadow chancellor. You couldnt make it up.

"Brexit means Brexit".... just like a mum saying "Bedtime is Bedtime" when the kids continue to stay up

There is a reason she has to keep repeating it. Unfortunately the civil servants and quite a few tory mp's think they can overturn the result of the referendum (ditto the lords).

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Brexit Britain: The poor man of Western Europe?

By Simon Tilford

The UK has economic strengths, such as a flexible labour market, which ensures that unemployment
is low even in many of its economically struggling regions. But contrary to much of the received
wisdom, Britain has not been one of Europe’s economic stars over the last 15 years. And Brexit is set to
exacerbate the economy’s underlying weaknesses.

In terms of economic growth per head, Britain’s performance has been in line with France, a country
now synonymous in the UK with economic failure. The British are no richer relative to the EU-15
average than they were 15 years ago, and the average Briton has to work more hours than the EU-15
average to achieve that income.

Sustainable increases in living standards require economies to combine land, labour, capital and
technology in ever-more efficient ways; Britain has made a poor job of this. The UK’s productivity
performance has been woeful, falling to just 90 per cent of the EU-15 average. This helps explain
why Britons’ wages have risen by much less than their French and German counterparts over the last
15 years.

Moreover, the UK is highly dependent on London and its environs. Apart from London, just one British
region – the south-east of England – has a GDP per capita in excess of the EU-15 average, meaning
that just 27 per cent of the UK population live in regions wealthier than that EU average.

Far from catching-up with the richer parts of the EU – as one might expect as they adopt technologies
and working practices developed elsewhere – the UK’s poor regions have fallen further behind.

Britain’s problems lie mainly on the supply-side and in the structure of public spending. Three key
issues stand out: poor skills among a sizeable chunk of the workforce; weak infrastructure and a lack of
affordable housing; and the centralisation of political and commercial power in London.

Unfortunately, Brexit risks aggravating most, if not all, of these problems. And Britain’s already startling
regional imbalances are likely to worsen further, leaving much of the country’s population living in
areas considerably poorer than the EU-15 average.

The Conservatives will provide some fiscal stimulus to counter the weakening of growth caused by
Brexit, but will not make the long-term investments in infrastructure and skills needed by the UK. They
have few MPs in the poorer regions that would benefit most from such spending, while the resulting
higher borrowing and/or taxation would be unpopular with their core vote in England’s wealthy South.

Full: https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/pb_breixt_britain_ST_sept16.pdf

 

[Inferno]

The circus that keeps on giving, the High Court rules that legislation to trigger Article 50 must be passed by Parliament:

IN A major blow for Britain’s government, the High Court ruled Thursday that the prime minister can’t trigger the U.K.’s exit from the European Union without approval from Parliament.

The government is likely to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. Several claimants challenged plans for Brexit in a case with major constitutional implications, hinging on the balance of power between Parliament and the government.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will launch exit negotiations with the EU by March 31. She is relying on a power called the royal prerogative that lets the government withdraw from international treaties.

Claimants argue that leaving the EU will remove rights, including free movement within the bloc, and say that can’t be done without Parliament’s approval. Three senior judges ruled that “the government does not have the power under the Crown’s prerogative” to start EU exit talks.

The case is considered the most important constitutional matter in a generation. Underscoring the importance of the case, May put Attorney General Jeremy Wright in charge of the legal team fighting the claim. Wright argued that the lawsuit is an attempt to put a legal obstacle in the way of enacting the result of the June 23 referendum to leave the EU.

May wants to use royal prerogative, historic powers officially held by the queen, to trigger Article 50 of the EU’s treaty, which starts two years of talks before Britain’s departure from the EU. The powers, which have in reality passed to politicians, enable decisions to be made without a vote of Parliament and cover matters as grave as declaring war or as basic as issuing passports. Historically, royal prerogative has also applied to foreign affairs and the negotiation of treaties.

http://www.news.com.au/world/europe...e/news-story/fe860a755eb7d52449cc9f5545d98c2d