Nigel Farrage - this pains me more than I can possible explain but.....

[the_weegie]

...snip...

Currently the "solution" some are proposing to the Northern Ireland border issue is using technology that is either untested or doesn't exist. Extending article 50 would allow time to actually create/test something that works, then the UK could go back to EU and say "this is what we've got and we've proven it works", at which point, UK leaves EU and there's no hard border, everyone wins. Yes, businesses and individuals don't know what's going on because of the uncertainty, extending would give every company another 18 months at least of "carry on as normal", ending the uncertainty. Nothing really happened in terms of businesses pulling out of UK in the first 18 months after triggering article 50, it's only been recently. Extending would I think allow everyone to take a breath because we know a lot more now than we did then.

I agree that the EU is probably not going to renegotiate but that's not egotistical, that's them in a stronger bargaining position than us and using full advantage of it. If I was the other way around I'd hope we would do the same. Why should they allow us to have our cake and eat it? Because we're Great Britain, some world superpower? Cause we're not, we're a relative minnow in the world economy.

[ik9000]

but the track record of uk gov custom-spec, bespoke IT systems is appalling, and 2 years wouldn't give enough time to mess it up, run over budget, get more public funds allocated to it, go through two parliamentary committee reviews and then finally get canned in a public furore and daily-hate headline frenzy.

Ergo, It would just push the problem 2 years down the line, at which point we'd look pretty stupid if we came to the bargaining table with no answers, the same problems as orginally complained about, and just 2 wasted years of time to show for it. I mean that would be just incompetent and embarrassing wouldn't it? To be seen in the international community to have utterly wasted two years of time doing the equivalent of jack-all and still be no closer to getting a solution in place. It would just be farcical. Luckily our MPs would *never* allow that kind of incompetent sh** storm on their watch right? Oh no wait....

[Saracen999]

AFAIK it doesn't apply to non-tariff barriers as it says nothing about quota, rules, standards, etc, etc. Obviously they (UK/EU) could come to an agreement on those but that's what the WA is for and if we've just walked away from that there's probably going to be a lack of trust and faith that the UK would honor any agreements.

....

Actually, it does. Several times.

A customs union shall be understood to mean the substitution of a single customs territory for two or more customs territories, so that

(i)duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except, where necessary, those permitted under Articles XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV and XX) are eliminated with respect to substantially all the trade between the constituent territories of the union or at least with respect to substantially all the trade in products originating in such territories, and,

(ii)subject to the provisions of paragraph 9, substantially the same duties and other regulations of commerce are applied by each of the members of the union to the trade of territories not included in the union;

As for the size of the exit cost, that entirely depends on whose assessment you take, and how you define commitments.

For instance, do you understand the accounting terms accrual and prepayment? If not, and for anyone that doesn't, it consists of apportioning charges or costs that spread across an accounting period in portions that are, and aren't, relevant to an accounting period.

So .... you might pay the gas bill in arrears. Some of the pwyment made at the start of a year relates to gas used in the previous year. Or, you might pay water rates 6 months in advance, one month before the end of a year, but then only 1/6th of the payment relates to the year in which it was made, and 5/6ths is carried forward to next year, even though it was paid this year.

As I understand it, the EU (as an EEC) insisted, on entry, that we pay towards pensions of those serving before we joined, and now, they want us to pay forward for pensions maturing after we've left.

In other words, they want both parts of prepayments and accruals to fall on us. They want to have their cake and eat it.

Which brings me to moral and legal commitments.

An argument can be made, morally, to pay, pro-rata, for that portion of a pension earned while we were members, but not (on accrual/prepayment principles) for for service done while we were not members. After all, such service wasn't done for our benefit and indeed, while not members, is very likely to our detriment.

But how much of a commitment is such a "moral" commitment? None at all, in legal terms. And a House of Lords report put our defined legal commitment at naff-all.

Effectively, the £39bn is little more than accepting much of the EU's view of what they think we owe. Know any other situations where you would let the other party to a contract dictate such costs? If so, I've got a great rental property you'd be perfect for.

But that "cost", if you remember, was one of the EU's "must agree before we can move on".

Another, right after Lisbon Art.50 was invoked was that the "exit" and FTA talks "MUST" occur consequetively, and agreeing to that was Mrs. May's single biggest sellout. The secobd-biggest was a "backstop" which was effectively extorted out of her .... remember her 4am dash to Brussels to extricate a "failed" deal?

The "talks" have consisted of one set of extortions after another and each time, May has blinked first. She even blinked over her deal .... until Parliament, collectively, massively and for very diverse reasons, told both her and the EU where to stick it.

And STILL the EU maintain it's the only deal "possible". But. Messr's Tusk, Juncket, etc, it isn't possible. Just because May agrees it doesn't make it a deal. Parliament has to ratify, just as the EU Parliament andcmember states have to. But our Parliament massively, to a historically entirely unprecedented extent, said "No, nein, nuts to that".

So .... if that's the "only" deal for them, and it's utterly unacceptable here, that leaves one possibility.

Which just about all parties say they don't want, but somewhat pretend to be preparing for.

[Top_gun]

Looks like a case of Farage blaming the EU for the UK's inability to negotiate a deal.

The EU has certainly blown the Brexit argument that the EU need the UK more than the other way around. The UK never had a strong negotiating tactic at the table.

The reality is Farage is an idiot and the UK is going suffer economic turmoil for years to come.

[philehidiot]

The reality is Farage is an idiot

My points from earlier. Q.E.D. People also discredit Trump as being an idiot. Stops them actually addressing their points. These people are not stupid, they must be quite bright to do what they've done. Once you accept that, maybe productive progress can be made. Until that point, people are just unwilling to engage because their opponent is obviously too stupid to bother with.

The UK had many negotiating tactics available to them, they just failed completely on strategy.

The UK has negotiated a deal. So has the EU. It's just a really bad one for us which is why they won't change it.

[matts-uk]

You do know it is the UK who chose to leave, right? I mean saying it take two to tango, that it's a failure on both sides, and implying that the EU is in anyway responsible would be like telling your partner that they're to blame for you sleeping around or that the reason you're filling for divorce is because of both your failures.

Yes, I know it was the UK who chose to leave. That is to say 33,000,000 individuals expressed their individual preference according to 33,000,000 unique perspectives and circumstances. No, Brexit is nothing like the breakdown of a marriage. Brexit is a geopolitical event; so different to leaving an unfaithful partner that the comparison is daft. To my knowledge the UK did not significantly break any trust or vow agreed with the EU institutions. The referendum margin was so thin a meaningful concession on free movement would have changed the outcome.

How about comparing to some other political failures in Europe? The escalation of WWI perhaps? The monarchs and ruling classes could have avoided the impending conflict but were too proud and too vain to try. Then in the aftermath at Versailles maybe? Where France and Britain were so determined to penalise Germany, they planted the seeds for the rise of the Nazi party and the outbreak of WWII. After WWII it was said that 'we [the allies] hung the leaders and allowed the country to rebuild, but after WWI we did the reverse.' We might hope the lessons had been learnt.

Need i remind you that we've had two ministers in charge of negotiating with the EU resign because they didn't like the deal they were responsible for negotiating, one of them was so useless that he didn't bother turning up to the majority of negotiations and those that he did turn up to he didn't bother with things like paperwork, and the other wasn't even aware how important Dover was in terms of freight and didn't even bother reading the 35 pages of the Belfast agreement, one of the major stumbling blocks in the negotiations.

432 UK MPs voted against the deal brought back from Brussels. It seems DD might have a point. In view of May voting to amend the backstop it looks like she was not a fan either. The EU was fully aware the deal they let May walk away with had to get through Parliament and the deal she took didn't stand a cat in hells chance.

[Corky34]

Actually, it does. Several times.

A customs union shall be understood to mean the substitution of a single customs territory for two or more customs territories, so that

(i)duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except, where necessary, those permitted under Articles XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV and XX) are eliminated with respect to substantially all the trade between the constituent territories of the union or at least with respect to substantially all the trade in products originating in such territories, and,

(ii)subject to the provisions of paragraph 9, substantially the same duties and other regulations of commerce are applied by each of the members of the union to the trade of territories not included in the union;

That would one interpretation but there's others who interpret it differently.

GATT Art. XXIV and non-tariff barriers: Finally, Section 4 analyzes non-tariff barriers (GATT XX, SPS, and TBT measures) in light of the internal trade requirement of Art. XXIV:8(a)(i). The authors submit that Member A is not obligated to exempt its CU parties from the application of GATT Art. XX, SPS and TBT measures. In fact, it appears that Member A must apply these measures to CU-parties if it wishes to maintain them for other WTO Members. Failure to apply such measures to CU trade would very likely constitute arbitrary and unjustifiable discrimination, and thereby undermine the very basis of the measure itself. However, Member A may have other legitimate options to limit the restrictive impact of its SPS and TBT measures for its CU partners, particularly if all CU parties adopt equivalent measures that achieve the same level of protection.

And there are also further agreements to be taken into account.

A 1979 GATT Decision (so called ‘ Enabling Clause’ ) As a special and differential treatment for developing countries, provides for more favorable treatment to ‘ regional … arrangements entered into amongst less-developed contracting parties for the mutual reduction or elimination of tariffs and … of non-tariff measures’ than under GATT Article XXIV.117 With respect to the understanding of this provision, several points should be observed. For example, more favorable treatment is provided to RTAs or provisional agreements in goods where only developing countries and WTO Members are parties. On the other hand, any RTAs between developed and developing countries or between a WTO-member-developing country and a non-WTO-member-developing country cannot get that advantage.

Suffice to say it's not a simple it does/it doesn't answer, using it would most likely lead to protracted legal disputes with other members and the WTO isn't know for making speedy decisions, would the UK and EU really want to go down the route of potentially peeing off their trading partners, would they both want to be tied up in the courts for decades, etc, etc.

As I understand it, the EU (as an EEC) insisted, on entry, that we pay towards pensions of those serving before we joined, and now, they want us to pay forward for pensions maturing after we've left.

I've seen that mentioned before but couldn't find anything relevant when i googled it, you wouldn't happen to have a link or something i could read, pls.

In other words, they want both parts of prepayments and accruals to fall on us. They want to have their cake and eat it.

Personally i find talk about how much our commitments are a bit of a red herring as in the grand scheme of things it's a tiny amount, we're talking about two organisations who have revenues in the £800bn range here, £40bn is chump change to them, especially when there's fairly good evidence that it's already cost us at least 10x that.

Yes, I know it was the UK who chose to leave. That is to say 33,000,000 individuals expressed their individual preference according to 33,000,000 unique perspectives and circumstances. No, Brexit is nothing like the breakdown of a marriage. Brexit is a geopolitical event; so different to leaving an unfaithful partner that the comparison is daft. To my knowledge the UK did not significantly break any trust or vow agreed with the EU institutions. The referendum margin was so thin a meaningful concession on free movement would have changed the outcome.

How about comparing to some other political failures in Europe? The escalation of WWI perhaps? The monarchs and ruling classes could have avoided the impending conflict but were too proud and too vain to try. Then in the aftermath at Versailles maybe? Where France and Britain were so determined to penalise Germany, they planted the seeds for the rise of the Nazi party and the outbreak of WWII. After WWII it was said that 'we [the allies] hung the leaders and allowed the country to rebuild, but after WWI we did the reverse.' We might hope the lessons had been learnt.

I appreciate the answer but unfortunately none of what you just said address the original point, that somehow the EU is equally to blame for the mess we currently find ourselves in.

432 UK MPs voted against the deal brought back from Brussels. It seems DD might have a point. In view of May voting to amend the backstop it looks like she was not a fan either. The EU was fully aware the deal they let May walk away with had to get through Parliament and the deal she took didn't stand a cat in hells chance.

Mrs May voted against her own backstop, she apparently spent six months convincing the EU to accept a UK wide customs union instead of a border down the Irish sea, it's her backstop, it's her deal, and if there's a way to solve the NI border problem I've yet to hear it.

[Top_gun]

My points from earlier. Q.E.D. People also discredit Trump as being an idiot. Stops them actually addressing their points. These people are not stupid, they must be quite bright to do what they've done. Once you accept that, maybe productive progress can be made. Until that point, people are just unwilling to engage because their opponent is obviously too stupid to bother with.

The UK had many negotiating tactics available to them, they just failed completely on strategy.

The UK has negotiated a deal. So has the EU. It's just a really bad one for us which is why they won't change it.

Thanks but I just stick to my original point. Farage and other Brexiteer's appeals mostly to the least intellectual members of society. More than happy to continually call Farage an idiot.

It's obvious Brexiteer's never had Plan A much less Plan B.

[Saracen999]

@ Corky re: GATT/WTO and "interpretion"

I'd just point out in my first comments, with the history, I did point out it was vague, uncertain and somewhat controversial, due in large part to the unsatisfactory nature of it's inception.

As for our "commitments", it wasn't me that brought it up as an issue. I'm merely pointing out that taking figures as some kind of fact is simplistic, and what "commitments" are is open to dispute. The figure arrived at is a political settlement designed to move talks on, no more. And, it was yet another point that the EU demanded be settled in order to move on. Therefore, it is ONLY a commitment in tbe event we agree (and I mean, ratify) the deal containing that figure.

[Saracen999]

Oh, and Corky .... on one of your quotes about further matters .... who are you asserting is a "developing country" ... us, or the EU?

Be careful in reading GATT. There are lots of special case provisions, evrn in art. 24.

[Corky34]

Be careful in reading GATT. There are lots of special case provisions, evrn in art. 24.

You're kidding right, i can handle reading a legal document but when it starts referencing other parts of itself or even worse other documents i get completely lost, that's what legally type people are for.

I get what you're saying with interpretations, uncertain, the "commitments" etc, etc. But that's what politics is, it's agreements between people, among people, and involving people, you could say it's a way of saving a ton of time and money on legal costs, so yes we may choose to interpret it one way and the other side another but if we can't, or won't, come to an agreement then you're looking at years, or even decades, of court battles and potentially a very hefty legal bill at the end of it all.

[Galant]

A video has surfaced of Corbyn speaking to Ireland about their 2nd referendum and the EU:

[peterb]

I don't have a lot of time for Jeremy, but he was spot on about the European superstate. Not sure about his NATO analysis - the EU wants its own European Defence Force independent of the USA, while conveniently ignoring that the USA pay the largest share of the running costs, and many of the smaller nations pay much less than their share ... so I can see how that might play out as the bills start mounting... especially without the UK who is another major contributor.

Of course, as another political opportunist, he'll try and re-interpret what he meant, no doubt aided by the stellar intellect of Diane Abbott.

[Saracen999]

Peter, please don't say, or at least give a warning, about comments like that last one. I now have to clean sprayed coffee out of my carpet .... once I finish the choking that my laughter caused. You need a "put down cups of hot, staining liquid before reading further" warning smilie.

[opel80uk]

I don't see what you think is so great about what he is saying. On one hand he's saying that May made a mistake signing up to the backstop, now realises that mistake, and thinks the EU should go again and getting a deal, because 'it has proved to be a disaster' for May. And yet on the other, he doesn't seem to want to afford the British people the same courtesy of having a rethink when, regardless of the why's and the wherefores, the whole Brexit debacle could be accurately be described as a disaster.

The PM negotiated a deal with the EU. No one in the EU forced her to negotiate that deal, or accept the terms of the deal on offer from the EU. If I negotiate and agree the purchase of a house with a price settled on by myself with the current owner, I can’t then after telling him my wife isn’t happy with that price, say he’s is being unreasonable when he refuses to renegotiate that deal, with my whole argument based on ‘well you’ll lose out by not accepting my new offer too’.

The idea that Farage is making sense to people with this revisionist rubbish is both amusing and worrying in equal measure.

[Corky34]

A video has surfaced of Corbyn speaking to Ireland about their 2nd referendum and the EU:

The problem is he's as much an idiot as the rest of them...