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The UK votes to leave the European Union |OUT2| Mayday, Mayday, I've lost an ARM

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T

theaface

Member
slider said:
And what will happen when she rolls out her massive parliamentary majority? Oh, that's right. Nothing. God, we deserve better than this. :(
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All will be well, because she'll have 'crushed the saboteurs'. The Daily Mail tells me we'd have already negotiated the best deals if it wasn't for the pesky opposition trying to frustrate the Brexit process. Y'know, the same opposition that had a three line whip supporting the Article 50 bill with zero amendments.
 
K

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
I found interesting the fact that May is not aware about what is discussed at lower levels between UK and EU.

Over dinner, Juncker slapped down May by pulling out a copy of the EU-Canada trade deal, a 2,000-page document that took nearly a decade to negotiate, and recommended that the prime minister study its complexity.
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Funny and necessary considering how dismissive about the complexity of the negotiations are the British leaders.
 
T

TeddyBoy

Member
CTLance said:
Pulling out that CETA mammoth must've been pretty cathartic for Juncker. Bet he wanted to slap her with the 2k pages by the end of the dinner.

On a side note, I wasn't aware UK citizens were struggling this much (from the spiegel article):

Translated: "Few are aware that three quarters of the country('s populace) are poorer than the EU-15 average."

I mean, I guess that's mostly the peeps outside London, and I know that expenses out in the sticks are far more manageable, but three quarters is a huge amount of people. Granted, being poorer than the average of (the presumably most successful) half of the EU might not be all that painful, but still, it sure sounds frightening. Which is intended, by all means, but nonetheless something I hadn't even considered to that degree. I was aware that Thatcher et al bled the countryside dry in order to boost London, but to see it put in numbers is sobering.
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With a stat like that it actually reminded with of a report by the inequality briefing.

I think they definitely did a little bit of picking and choosing with the areas selected to get a nice headline but it's still a decent point, inequality in the UK is massive.
 
C

Chinner

Banned
theaface said:
All will be well, because she'll have 'crushed the saboteurs'. The Daily Mail tells me we'd have already negotiated the best deals if it wasn't for the pesky opposition trying to frustrate the Brexit process. Y'know, the same opposition that had a three line whip supporting the Article 50 bill with zero amendments.
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We get the government that we deserve.
 
B

Bleepey

Member
theaface said:
All will be well, because she'll have 'crushed the saboteurs'. The Daily Mail tells me we'd have already negotiated the best deals if it wasn't for the pesky opposition trying to frustrate the Brexit process. Y'know, the same opposition that had a three line whip supporting the Article 50 bill with zero amendments.
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haha. I am laughing but it's not funny.
 
B

Blue Lou

Member
Is the Times article basically a rehash of what was said in German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung?

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtscha...ptisch-vor-brexit-verhandlungen-14993673.html

This is from the Berlin Bureau Chief at The Economist on Twitter:

- Today's FAZ report on May's disastrous dinner with Juncker - briefed by senior Commission sources - is absolutely damning.
- May has made clear to the Commission that she fully expects to be reelected as PM.
- It is thought [in the Commission] that May wants to frustrate the daily business of the EU27, to improve her own negotiating position.
- May seemed pissed off at Davis for regaling her dinner guests of his ECJ case against her data retention measures - three times.
- EU side were astonished at May's suggestion that EU/UK expats issue could be sorted at EU Council meeting at the end of June.
- Juncker objected to this timetable as way too optimistic given complexities, eg on rights to health care.
- Juncker pulled two piles of paper from his bag: Croatia's EU entry deal, Canada's free trade deal. His point: Brexit will be v v complex.
- May wanted to work through the Brexit talks in monthly, 4-day blocks; all confidential until the end of the process.
- Commission said impossible to reconcile this with need to square off member states & European Parliament, so documents must be published.
- EU side felt May was seeing whole thing through rose-tinted-glasses. "Let us make Brexit a success" she told them.
- Juncker countered that Britain will now be a third state, not even (like Turkey) in the customs union: "Brexit cannot be a success".
- May seemed surprised by this and seemed to the EU side not to have been fully briefed.
- She cited her own JHA opt-out negotiations as home sec as a model: a mutually useful agreement meaning lots on paper, little in reality.
- May's reference to the JHA (justice and home affairs) opt-outs set off alarm signals for the EU side. This was what they had feared.
- ie as home sec May opted out of EU measures (playing to UK audience) then opted back in, and wrongly thinks she can do same with Brexit
- "The more I hear, the more sceptical I become" said Juncker (this was only half way through the dinner)
- May then insisted to Juncker et al that UK owes EU no money because there is nothing to that effect in the treaties.
- Her guests then informed her that the EU is not a golf club
- Davis then objected that EU could not force a post-Brexit, post-ECJ UK to pay the bill. OK, said Juncker, then no trade deal.
- ...leaving EU27 with UK's unpaid bills will involve national parliaments in process (a point that Berlin had made *repeatedly* before).
- "I leave Downing St ten times as sceptical as I was before" Juncker told May as he left
- Next morning at c7am Juncker called Merkel on her mobile, said May living in another galaxy & totally deluding herself
- Merkel quickly reworked her speech to Bundestag to include her now-famous "some in Britain still have illusions" comment
- FAZ concludes: May in election mode & playing to crowd, but what use is a big majority won by nurturing delusions of Brexit hardliners?
- Juncker's team now think it more likely than not that Brexit talks will collapse & hope Brits wake up to harsh realities in time.
- What to make of it all? Obviously this leak is a highly tactical move by Commission. But contents deeply worrying for UK nonetheless.
- The report points to major communications/briefing problems. Important messages from Berlin & Brussels seem not to be getting through.
- Presumably as a result, May seems to be labouring under some really rather fundamental misconceptions about Brexit & the EU27.
- Also clear that (as some of us have been warning for a while...) No 10 should expect every detail of the Brexit talks to leak.
- Sorry for the long thread. And a reminder: full credit for all the above reporting on the May/Juncker dinner goes to the FAZ
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C

chadskin

Member
- EU side felt May was seeing whole thing through rose-tinted-glasses. "Let us make Brexit a success" she told them.
- Juncker countered that Britain will now be a third state, not even (like Turkey) in the customs union: "Brexit cannot be a success".
- May seemed surprised by this and seemed to the EU side not to have been fully briefed.
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Astounding.
 
E

EmiPrime

Member
She is way out of her depth. Looking superficially prime ministerial and having a few catchphrases for the right wing press to parrot can win elections but it doesn't work at this level.
 
M

Muffin1611

Banned
- May then insisted to Juncker et al that UK owes EU no money because there is nothing to that effect in the treaties.
- Her guests then informed her that the EU is not a golf club
- Davis then objected that EU could not force a post-Brexit, post-ECJ UK to pay the bill. OK, said Juncker, then no trade deal.
- ...leaving EU27 with UK's unpaid bills will involve national parliaments in process (a point that Berlin had made *repeatedly* before).
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This is incredible. That May could sit there with a straight face and say this while thinking she'd still get a trade deal and not get sued into oblivion.
 
D

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
have they explained what the "brexit bill" actually is yet?

I see they've dropped any pretence now and are finally just saying it's being used to prevent a trade deal.
 
D

daviyoung

Banned
D4Danger said:
have they explained what the "brexit bill" actually is yet?

I see they've dropped any pretence now and are finally just saying it's being used to prevent a trade deal.
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It's apparently all the stuff we signed into, EU staff pensions and infrastructure projects. £60 billion to pay.

No matter how much of this is posturing by EU, this whole dinner thing is very embarrassing for the government. Probably time to pull out a good old-fashioned sex scandal.
 
O

oti

Banned
B

Burai

shitonmychest57
Xando said:
As i said earlier. Talks will get tough. May will walk away without any deal and the next goverment will come back to get a deal after 5 years of WTO
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We aren't joining the WTO with a debt like that hanging over our heads. Not least because it's owed to 27 existing WTO members.

We wouldn't just crash out of the EU, we'd be crashing out of the planet.
 
O

oti

Banned
Burai said:
We aren't joining the WTO with a debt like that hanging over our heads. Not least because it's owed to 27 existing WTO members.

We wouldn't just crash out of the EU, we'd be crashing out of the planet.
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where's your sense for adventcha
 
8

8bit

Knows the Score
C-ufTJrXsAApOXG.jpg


It's good that Jeremy Cliffe, the only person in the UK that understands German, has seen this and reported on it.
 
PJV3

PJV3

Member
Crashing out in a huff isn't going to impress countries like Japan who are concerned about their UK investments.
 
J

jelly

Member
Is the UK position hoping EU will blink first and that's it?

I honestly can't see what the strategy is beyond that and hoping France go mental with Le Pen. Maybe the Tories do want the UK crashing out and they get to turn the UK into the biggest tax island with the poor serving the upper class.
 
J

jelly

Member
PJV3 said:
Crashing out in a huff isn't going to impress countries like Japan who are concerned about their UK investments.
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The Government still hasn't owned up to what they promised Nissian. Are companies just going to line up for special deals, sure that will be good for public service funding.
 
M

Maledict

Member
jelly said:
Is the UK position hoping EU will blink first and that's it?

I honestly can't see what the strategy is beyond that and hoping France go mental with Le Pen. Maybe the Tories do want the UK crashing out and they get to turn the UK into the biggest tax island with the poor serving the upper class.
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UK conservative politicians fundamentally do not understand Europe, on a very basic level. They also don't understand that Europe can (amazingly) read and hear what they say in the Uk press and news.

It's why Ivan Rogers resigned. Every civil service and diplomatic meeting is going the same way - the tories will not listen. They have some bizarre, return to the 1950s thing going on and are happy to ignore all evidence to the contrary. They've also instructed civil servants to stop presenting negative Brexit news at meetings.
 
N

Nordicus

Member
Xando said:
As i said earlier. Talks will get tough.
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"BREXIT COULD BE SIMPLE IF EU WANTED IT TO BE!!!!1!1!"

I'm amazed that people have this image that 40 years of significant financial and political connections can be undone quickly OR simply.

Took you 8 bloody months to simply go from Brexit referendum to a parliament vote!
 
Theonik

Theonik

Member
Halph n Halph said:
I'd suggest that the EU might also get a reality check. I'm not sure they understand the willingness of the british people to burn it all down if it means sticking two fingers up at Merkel and Junker.
The evidence is there for all to see when you look at May's approval ratings.
The majority of our press are behind her, rallying the anti EU sentiment.
I've got a feeling things are going to get messy .
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The EU knows they just don't care why would they?

Xando said:
Dat Galactic sovereignity.


I'm not that deep into how the WTO works but I thought the UK is already member of the WTO?
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They need to submit a new schedule that need to be approved by all members.
 
N

Nordicus

Member
8bit said:
Yeah, saw that. Other anecdotal evidence kind of points at her being really badly informed and / or pig-headed though, not really outmanoeuvring the EU.
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Saw someone provide their explanation for May's attitude, kinda old tho, from Feb 25th, but it's still relevant. Probably of use to some here.

The decision point was set up for her by Tony Blair's government in 2007. Article 36 of that year's Lisbon Treaty gave the UK (and Ireland) the right to opt out of all the police and criminal justice measures adopted under the Maastricht treaty, before the European Court of Justice took over jurisdiction of them. Britain was given 7 years (until June 2014) to decide on whether or not to use this opt-out on an all-or-nothing basis. But if Britain chose to opt out en bloc, it could then apply to opt back in to individual measures that we considered to be in our national interest.

In 2014, Home Secretary Theresa May notified the European Commission that we would opt out of all 130 measures. As she put it at the time, ”our guiding principle was that if there is no clear purpose for a European law, there shouldn't be a European law". At the same time, she made clear that we would seek to opt back in to 35 of the 130 measures that enabled trans-European cooperation in areas vital to UK security: such as the European Criminal Records Information System, Financial Intelligence Units, the Prisoner Transfer Framework, and (though this was on a separate legal basis) the European Arrest Warrant.

Apart from a procedural hiccup or two in the House of Commons, Theresa May had a successful negotiation.
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As for whether it's likely to work again:
Theresa May's biggest negotiation with the EU was a spectacular success for the cherry-picking strategy that she is now using to approach Brexit.

So it can work again, right? Wrong. The strategy of ”exit then cherry-picking" worked with the JHA decision in 2014 for a simple reason: it was set up as an ”exit plus cherry-picking" deal in the Lisbon Treaty itself.
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X

Xando

Member
Zaph said:
Would they even have to? They could just force extra tariffs on any trade until it's all paid back.
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Wasn't there some kind of WTO rule that you have to have the same tariffs for everyone in the WTO?

Muffin1611 said:
Weren't there talks about sueing Britain at the International Court of Justice in The Hague if they refuse to pay the bill?
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Was thinking about this but i don't think(?) they handle trade and financial disputes?
 
D

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
jelly said:
If the UK doesn't pay back what is owed to the EU how could any country trust them?
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you assume it's owed. The UK has liabilities like pensions but it isn't responsible for future EU projects if it leaves the EU. Not to mention over the past 40 years it's been a net contributor to the EU.

as for what they would do it seems clear now they'll just keep stalling trade deals as punishment rather than accept responsibility for future funding.
 
M

Muffin1611

Banned
D4Danger said:
you assume it's owed. The UK has liabilities like pensions but it isn't responsible for future EU projects if it leaves the EU. Not to mention over the past 40 years it's been a net contributor to the EU.

as for what they would do it seems clear now they'll just keep stalling trade deals as punishment rather than accept responsibility for future funding.
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The EU communal budget was already negotiated, and the agreement lasts till 2020. Britain had part in these negotiations.

Why should Britain be allowed to leave the bloc without honoring the agreement they made exactly?

Also, of course they would stall trade deals. Who would make a trade deal with a country that is trying to break agreements they made before already?
 
T

tuxfool

Banned
Zaph said:
Would they even have to? They could just force extra tariffs on any trade until it's all paid back.
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This is complicated by the fact that they couldn't offer tariffs that blanket discriminated against one country in particular. They'd have to tariff based on sector.

There is also the matter of whether the UK is in the WTO as independent entity in the first place.
 
D

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
Muffin1611 said:
The EU communal budget was already negotiated, and the agreement lasts till 2020. Britain had part in these negotiations.

Why should Britain be allowed to leave the bloc without honoring the agreement they made exactly?

Also, of course they would stall trade deals. Who would make a trade deal with a country that is trying to break agreements they made before already?
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like I said the UK has liabilities that it absolutely should honour but the scope of the bill seems to change every day so without knowing what they're asking for it's hard to say what they owe. Also presumably that doesn't include the cost of moving agencies, staff etc so there's more to it than what's known.
 
M

Muffin1611

Banned
D4Danger said:
like I said the UK has liabilities that it absolutely should honour but the scope of the bill seems to change every day so without knowing what they're asking for it's hard to say what they owe. Also presumably that doesn't include the cost of moving agencies, staff etc so there's more to it than what's known.
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Completely true, maybe I just misinterpreted your "you assume it's owed".

The bill itself isn't set in stone, that's for sure. I think the PM of Luxembourg said the range is somewhat between 40bn-60bn€ about two days ago.
 
P

PdotMichael

Banned
- EU side felt May was seeing whole thing through rose-tinted-glasses. "Let us make Brexit a success" she told them.
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Remember when the narrative was that the German-French controlled EU were holding the UK down?
Good times

Also Yanis Varoufakis is sure just a broken mess.
 
L

Linkstrikesback

Member
D4Danger said:
you assume it's owed. The UK has liabilities like pensions but it isn't responsible for future EU projects if it leaves the EU. Not to mention over the past 40 years it's been a net contributor to the EU.

as for what they would do it seems clear now they'll just keep stalling trade deals as punishment rather than accept responsibility for future funding.
Click to expand...

The UK is responsible for some near future EU projects though. For instance, continuing to fund the agreed upon science budget which was already allocated until 2020 - those projects will continue regardless of whether the UK is in or out, and the UK does have to fufill those budget commitments it made.
 
Z

Zaph

Member
Does she not realise how stupid that sounds? "Let us make leaving your club a success"

A club's job is to what's best for its members. Not former members.
 
P

PdotMichael

Banned
Zaph said:
Does she not realise how stupid that sounds? "Let us make leaving your club a success"

A club's job is to what's best for its members. Not former members.
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It's the kind of mindset that thinks that Germany would push for a UK friendly deal because it exports 5% of its car to the UK but don't realize that over 50% of all in UK produced cars get exported to other EU countries, which would mean that they have no leverage at all.
 
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