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The Brexit process

There is a basic contradiction here. If Brexit were being done to pursue a non-neoliberal course, that would be one thing. Fuck the trade deals - if they're not quite as good, we'll live with it. But it's not. It's being done by high-neo-liberal tories who have no intention of abandoning full-throttle capitalism. On their own terms, brexit makes no sense whatever.
 
ItWillNeverWork said:
Yes, but then we are not starting from the same position as Canada, are we? All current EU law is going to be automatically enshrined in UK law with the act that the government are proposing, so in principle there isn't much in the way of getting a deal done fairly promptly. Harmonisation of our markets has already happened; we are four fifths of the way there already.

The key variable acting as a potential road block here are the opinions of other EU member states as to what deal we should get. How that pans out remains to be seen.
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Then the deal you are looking at more closely resembles the Australia - EU deal, which took two years.(eta: conformity assesment followed by Mutual Recognition Agreement MRA) Think the problem won't be EU member states, its who authorises what between Parliament, Commission, Council
 
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littlebabyjesus said:
There is a basic contradiction here. If Brexit were being done to pursue a non-neoliberal course, that would be one thing. Fuck the trade deals - if they're not quite as good, we'll live with it. But it's not. It's being done by high-neo-liberal tories who have no intention of abandoning full-throttle capitalism. On their own terms, brexit makes no sense whatever.
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The UK has a pretty unique take on neoliberalism though, one not shared across Europe. We (our politicians) don't give a toss who owns our biggest employers, our utilities, infrastructure companies etc.

The EU trade negotiators understood that a free trade deal with a country that doesn't have similar levels of environmental and social protections, workers rights etc would be a free trade deal in which the EU was the loser as the other country's companies would be operating with unfair competitive advantages and able to undercut EU companies while selling within the EU.

I fear that those now in charge of UK trade negotiations haven't figured out this pretty basic issue, and will end up selling the UK industry even further down the river in free trade deals with china, India etc. The free trade deals they've criticised the EU for taking too long to sign.
 
free spirit said:
The UK has a pretty unique take on neoliberalism though, one not shared across Europe. We (our politicians) don't give a toss who owns our biggest employers, our utilities, infrastructure companies etc.

The EU trade negotiators understood that a free trade deal with a country that doesn't have similar levels of environmental and social protections, workers rights etc would be a free trade deal in which the EU was the loser as the other country's companies would be operating with unfair competitive advantages and able to undercut EU companies while selling within the EU.

I fear that those now in charge of UK trade negotiations haven't figured out this pretty basic issue, and will end up selling the UK industry even further down the river in free trade deals with china, India etc. The free trade deals they've criticised the EU for taking too long to sign.
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Well yes, which is why, although all the eu regs will be in place at the start - just transferred to British law, which was always going to be the starting point - that is only a starting point. There are no guarantees what will be changed down the road.

The govt is in a bind. They appear to want to end free movement of people and keep the single market. Same bind the Swiss are in. In the end, keeping both is not their decision to make.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Well yes, which is why, although all the eu regs will be in place at the start - just transferred to British law, which was always going to be the starting point - that is only a starting point. There are no guarantees what will be changed down the road.

The govt is in a bind. They appear to want to end free movement of people and keep the single market. Same bind the Swiss are in. In the end, keeping both is not their decision to make.
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thing is, if they end up going for a hard brexit with access arrangements rather than membership of the common market, this would then mean that they're also able to dump regulations that they want to dump / need to dump to get a trade deal with China that doesn't disadvantage us.

If we retain full membership then that will only be on the basis that we also retain common environmental, social, work regulations.
 
When i understand about the whole brexit process is that nobody understands it.

Its about unpicking and reforming a bureaucratic and legal mountain of legislation and trade relationships accumulated over 40 years in the face of resistance and/or passive unhelpfulness from the rest of EU and large and from powerful domestic interests. Not to mention the effect of sundry variables like the economy, share prices, exchange rates and energy prices.

Meanwhile you have political pressure from a large section of the right wing press and public opinion which seems to think that johnny foreigner should just do what hes told.

And this process is all being masterminded by the three intellectual titans/rats-in-a-sack; Boris Johnson, David Davies and Liam Fox.

So a big thankyou to the pig fucker - and good luck Theresa.
 
free spirit said:
thing is, if they end up going for a hard brexit with access arrangements rather than membership of the common market, this would then mean that they're also able to dump regulations that they want to dump / need to dump to get a trade deal with China that doesn't disadvantage us.
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Davis has already indicated what he wants - you conform to different standards depending on who you're selling to. He said this explicitly just after taking the ministerial job. That is a clear indication of a race to the bottom. Expect it to be accompanied by further cuts in corporation tax, which will probably be needed to attract businesses that would otherwise be put off by the UK not being in the EU.

The idea that most of this is good for business is highly questionable. The idea that any of it is good for employees is absurd.
 
not forgetting that if you are big enough HMRC will let you off the tax bill and in general terms subsidise all business though in work tax credits. Which the european union was quick to put the kybosh on.....oh wait they never did
 
DotCommunist said:
not forgetting that if you are big enough HMRC will let you off the tax bill and in general terms subsidise all business though in work tax credits. Which the european union was quick to put the kybosh on.....oh wait they never did
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Except that yes, there are mechanisms in the Eu to stop such sharp practices. Hence Ireland being told to take taxes.

Clearly it would be better if it did better enforcing its own rules. Same goes for lots of organisations. But entirely ineffective? No.
 
FT opinion piece.

By caving in to her RW, May has thrown away her Aces with nothing to show for it.

By announcing that she will start the formal negotiations for Britain to leave the EU by March 2017, the prime minister has walked into a trap. She has given away what little leverage Britain has in the negotiations — without receiving any of the assurances that she needs to achieve a successful outcome.
The announcement of the decision about when the UK will trigger Article 50 — the process by which Britain gives formal notice that it intends to leave the EU — was made in a statesmanlike fashion. But the actual content of the decision is reckless and driven by politics, rather than Britain’s national interest.
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Not sure what else they can do, they have to start soon, I suspect the talks will be more pragmatic than some doom mongers predict.
 
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butchersapron said:
That's nonsense from them - they know the weight UK capital and its role in global flows is the leverage. Not silly politics.
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Indeed it is, but the fact remains that it is May's team actually sat at the 'poker table' on behalf of capital...and she appears to have compromised her poker face already.
 
brogdale said:
Normally would agree, (a la Streeck), but with the Brexit process we will see two players, both attempting to privilege capital, but with different political agendas.
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Politics is but the tiny shriveled shadow cast by capital here. There are no real splits that politics reflect here - there is just get on with it and do with at least disruption as possible, it'll all just be the same , so let's do it and sell it somehow, something about immigration.
 
butchersapron said:
Politics is but the tiny shriveled shadow cast by capital here. There are no real splits that politics reflect here - there is just get on with it and do with at least disruption as possible, it'll all just be the same , so let's do it and sell it somehow, something about immigration.
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Yes, but the tories have made the mistake of allowing (a form of) democracy into the process of the role of the consolidator state. The people have spoken and charged them with the challenge of delivering the political oxymoron of nationalist neoliberalism. So we have two political entities of capital faced with potential existential crisis if their variant fails. I do think there will be a 'poker game'.
 
brogdale said:
Yes, but the tories have made the mistake of allowing (a form of) democracy into the process of the role of the consolidator state. The people have spoken and charged them with the challenge of delivering the political oxymoron of nationalist neoliberalism. So we have two political entities of capital faced with potential existential crisis if their variant fails. I do think there will be a 'poker game'.
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I hope that you're right - If one of these things dies it would be good.
 
So Rudd reveals British jobs for British workers, (Mk III), the proposal to name & shame with the publication of % indigenous employed and throwing out the forrin doctors & students. No wonder capital's shills have taken to the media to condemn these policy proposals.

Tories seem to be struggling to square the circle of natio-liberalism.
 
I don't really have a problem with the idea that employers should hire from within the UK first. I've worked on technology projects where 1000s of people were shipped in from India to do data transfer - I'm sure they could have found people already here to do that work.

I watched her speech and she appears to think if you make all these people homeless with no access to a bank account they'll leave.

Given that almost half the legal migration from outside the EU are students and account for over 70,000 people I can't see how anyone will ever get to the 'tens of thousands' number.
 
brogdale said:
So Rudd reveals British jobs for British workers, (Mk III), the proposal to name & shame with the publication of % indigenous employed and throwing out the forrin doctors & students. No wonder capital's shills have taken to the media to condemn these policy proposals.

Tories seem to be struggling to square the circle of natio-liberalism.
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14600986_10154510344482980_272705468942429020_n.jpg
 
brogdale said:
So Rudd reveals British jobs for British workers, (Mk III), the proposal to name & shame with the publication of % indigenous employed and throwing out the forrin doctors & students. No wonder capital's shills have taken to the media to condemn these policy proposals.

Tories seem to be struggling to square the circle of natio-liberalism.
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this is at the same time as forcing shittier contracts on Jnr Doctors making it more likely that they'll go practise where the wages are higher, few years working private healthcare in the US kerching. Meanwhile the NHS creaks on
 
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