I think this is what is you say in England as “going all pear shaped”?
Exactly so 
Your hypothetical has to yield to reality. There already is a liberal, prosperous, advanced western nation with the world’s fifth biggest economy and a market of over 60 million wealthy people 20 miles off the coast of Europe. Despite the compelling interest to which you point, they have voted to end the deep, comprehensive, frictionless trade arrangment they enjoy with Europe, and to erect various barriers to trade - all that remains to be determined is exactly how signficant those barriers will be. They are not, at the moment, falling over themselves to strike deals with the EU; far from it, they are repudiating the deal they already have. The EU is keen to strike a new deal with them, and has suggested numerous models but, so far, the UK has rejected them all. The reason is obvious; there is no consensus in the UK on what deal they should have with the EU, and no particular model of deal enjoys majority support. Clearly, it’s not the EU’s lack of appetite for a deal that’s the problem here.
If there’s a no-deal Brexit, yes, the EU will still want to strike a deal with the UK. But there is no reason to suppose that their priorites and objectives in striking such a deal will be any different from what they are now, while they are trying to strike a deal before the no-deal Brexit. So, after what your refer to as a period of navel-gazing, the EU will likely still be saying what it is saying now; “We expect you to settle your financial liabilities to us; the deal needs to address this. We expect you make arrangements which will be effective to honour your guarantee of no hard border in Ireland; these arrangements should form part of the deal. We expect you to address the rights of EU citizens in the UK. Etc, etc.”
No-deal Brexit doesn’t really change the fundamental interests and objectives of either party. It does tilt the balance of power (still more) in the EU’s favour, though, so as a tactic for persuading the EU to yield on points which, so far, they have not been prepared to yield on it is not well-judged. If anything, it seems more likely to have the opposite effect; the UK will have a powerful incentive to commit to one of the models of deal that the EU is offering.
Was that the turning point? It seems to me that the chances of a Brexit deal are less than they were, ditto the chances of a Brexit no-deal. When all the alternatives are eliminated, what remains is, er, Remain?
Parliament is not rolling over, with the majority seeming to be opposed to both a deal and no-deal.
The advocate general’s opinion makes the process of remaining easier.
The government’s legal advice is sure to contain some zingers, which among other things will strengthen the EU’s negotiating position if anyone tries to improve on the draft. As well as emphasising how unattractive Brexit really is.
The Brexiteers are being loud and obnoxious, but everything they do seems to be counterproductive for their dreams?
Theresa May is doggedly pursuing Brexit, as well as humanly possible, which will ultimately take a lot of the sting out of the inevitable howling about a ‘stab in the back’. (Choice of metaphor deliberate, we face a very ugly future whatever happens).
Conversely, the chaos has been turned up to eleven, so the risk of crashing out without a deal certainly hasn’t gone away.
I can also see the moral and intellectual lightweights who represent us opting for a second referendum as the easy way out. And the vote then being to exit without a deal.
Good times.
Actually, it is the EU that is choosing to put barriers up. The UK government is on record as saying they want to maintain those systems. It is the EU who don’t want to allow it.
This is where I disagree most.
The fact is that the EU has groundswell of populism currently. Any hint that leaving the EU is painless and easy and can result in a good outcome absolutely has to be stamped on.
The effect of this is that the EU is using a different set of priorities with the UK negotiations then it would do were the UK my mythical “new country off the coast”.
That can’t be avoided, hence the hard line from the EU and the probable dip in UK prospects in the short to middle term. However. The EU will likely wait a suitable amount of time, long enough for it to be seen as living up to its word, and then will seek to establish better terms with the UK after all. It is isn’t an evil organisation, just very, very, very pragmatic.
The rest of your points are all reasonable, I don’t agree with them all but then there is no objective standard by which we can measure the correctness of either of our positions. We have never been in this position before, no country has. It is uncharted territory, there is no case study we can use to say with any certainty what will happen whether we stay or go. Heck, the EU itself has yet to prove itself capable of stability in its current form.
Or alternatively the EU has been very clear that the four freedoms are indivisible. It’s the rules of the club, right? The UK’s insistence on ending freedom of movement is the barrier, and all the kerfuffle ultimately stems from that.
Right; if I loudly refuse to follow the rules at the country club and renounce my membership, the country club is not the group “putting up barriers” when they refuse to let me back in.
What ??
You are the ones leaving a customs union. No one asked you to.
It is not any surprise that leaving that means that the various requirements for the trade barriers come into play - this is how the international trade works in the real world. Maybe not in the fantasy world of the Brexiters who seem to have dreamed up non existent technologies and other Trade Unicorns, but in the real world leaving a customs unions means trade barriers and checks!
In fact it is indeed on the physical and the human infrastructure that you on your side of the Channel are … well the only word I can use is pathetically unprepared on, from the Financial Times
You have shot your own supply chain systems for the industry in the back of the head over the silly Polish plumbers that have annoyed the middle England…
The UK is on the record saying it wants all the legal and the operational benefits of the customs union framework but none of the requirements of that framework.
It is … extremely childish and the actions of the politically immature to say this is the fault of the other party that you are not prepared, that you want a Trade Unicorn and we are really horrible people for not providing you with the Trade Unicorn and not even one that is in the UK colors.
It is … an act of completely incoherent, astonishing childish arrogance to assert UK are leaving the Customs Union but No, you Really Really insist that in fact no barriers be applied for you and no customs checks… in fact you just want to have the same Customs Union system…
The international trade systems do not work this way - if you really wanted the free trade sans the customs checks, and do it rapidly, you needed to adhere to something that is the pre-existing arrangement as there is no complex trade system that has ever been negotiated and decided in a mere 12 or 24 months - even if you English people had come to the EU with some kind of coherent plan from the day one… which you did not.
It is not the fault of the EU or anyone on this side of the Channel that the UK approach and politics has been infected with some bizarre form of the completely magical thinking that has ignored all the precedents on the time lines that have been needed for the negotiation of the free trade agreements … with the EU or the comparable bodies.
The idea of the Quick and Easy and some special Bespoke English Deal Tailored to the English national obsessions… this was completely magical thinking! It is not the EU being difficult - it is the situation that is very complicated at the best and the only resolutions that could be quick were the ones that were the Pre Defined but for the complete internal incoherence of your own politics you can not even arrange an internal agreement on!!!
Do not point the finger at us, this is a complete mess purely of your own doing!
I
Well yes.
You loudly renounce the membership, then you refuse the existing associated Membership programs as not for you and insist on having a whole new Special For ME membership program be laid out… bu you yourself keep changing your mind about exactly what you need…
And this is the fault of who?
The EU is does not exist as a single monolithic club with a single form of membership and single set of rules that cannot be amended.
If an external country (the UK) is offering to put in place systems to allow frictionless trade and the EU decides not to allow it then they are perfectly at liberty to do so but only one side is putting up barriers.
No.
This is completely the Magical Thinking.
The Customs Unions work on the basis of the specific rule sets. These rule sets are things that are complex.
If the Uk wishes to have a quick solution, it needs to take from the exisitng menu of rule sets.
This is the way the international trade treaties work.
That is it.
The UK having magical ideas and saying “We Propose Frictionless Trade” is … childish.
I need to stop using analogies here; one of us is clearly really bad at them. When it comes to international trade, the EU actually does exist with a single set of rules, last I checked. That’s why CETA was considered bilateral instead of multilateral - it was between Canada and the EU, not Canada and France and Greece and Poland and Spain and so on and so forth.
The idea that any given country will just accept a tax- and tariff-free trade deal with any other given country absent further regulations and agreements is not just wrong, it’s so wrong that I’m legitimately unsure how you got there. It’s bizarre. A frictionless trade deal such as in the EU the exception rather than the rule, and, as leavers know quite well, is accompanied by a mountain of rules to try to ensure that nobody gets screwed. That’s what the EU is, and that’s what leavers want to opt out of. This is what Ramira is talking about.
Who is using the language of “fault” here? certainly not me.
Childishness is talking about unicorns and assigning positions to me I don’t hold. Who said anything about “horrible people”. The EU (the political entity, not the people - a distinction you don’t seem interested in making) are perfectly at liberty to stick to their guns and put those restrictions in place and I understand exactly why they are doing what they are doing but let’s not pretend that they are not playing hard-ball for internal political reasons.
The incoherence is all yours as that is not something I have asserted. There is no* insistence *of no barriers but there is a willingness on one side to maintain no barriers, on the other side, not so much.
international trade works in whatever way two entities decide it does.
Sure, never said otherwise.
*you English people *? don’t you mean the UK Government?
Again with insistence on assigning fault.
As for precedents? There is no precedent for this. None. You have two, perfectly aligned entities with mutual benefits aplenty and a long history of cooperation. The groundwork is already done.
For god’s sake, of course the EU is being difficult. It has a self-evident, perfectly consistent reason for doing so. That’s not a issue of blame or being evil it is just the realities of politics. They have proclaimed themselves that that the UK must be worse-off outside the EU than in. A perfectly sensible position for them to take but one that perfectly fits the description of “difficult” what possible motivation have they to behave any other way?
hang on, didn’t you say it was…
why yes, yes you did.
What is magical thinking is the assertion that there is only one way of approaching a trade deal and only one possible outcome.
Sure and the length of time it took was in large part because of the distance between the two entities on many issues. The UK and the EU currently have perfect alignment.
I never said that at all. I don’t expect the EU to just accept such a deal. I’ve clearly said that the E.U. will stick rigidly to the rules because it is currently politically expedient to do so. Certainly the UK is willing to be far more flexible in approach, neither of those two positions seem arguable to me. Absent that political pressure you get a different deal.
and as an exception, and with the UK having close regulatory alignment already it becomes even more of an exception in the history of trade negotiations.
You’d be very wrong to think that “the leavers” represent any coherent opinion at all. There is a multiplicity of opinions as to what any “leave” should look like.
You know what, my posting on this isn’t helping me or anyone. I’ve read back over the last day or so and I’m not even convinced by what I’ve written.
I’ve got some rather unhappy personal issues that I suspect are coming out in my posts and I’m starting to imagine ill-will where none is intended and that’s not a good place to be in nor an honest place to debate from.
Apologies all round for any inconvenience, I shall take a break and will be back in a better frame of mind when all the crappy stuff has passed.
… there is no statement that there is only one way of approaching a trade deal.
However, there is the example of the past decades of multiple different trade deals… between trading blocs, between individual countries.
There are zero example of the magical result of “we propose frictionless trade” and an agreement in the 12 months or the 24 months.
**None. **
It is, encore, the magical thinking to think that the trading system is resolved by the asserting “we propose frictionless trade” without either the adhering to an existing framework or the years of the detailed negotiations for the bespoke deal (like with the Canada).
It is incredible, it is the child being angry for not getting the Unicorn.
Sticking rigidly to the rules means in this case simply applying the rules and not for some bizarre reason just waiving in a manner with zero precedent the customs controls and rules for the tracking of the origin and the content of the goods because for some strange reason the English have convinced themselves they are very very super special and none of the precedents of the decades and decades of trade negotiations or the time frames apply to them…
But everyone is being big Meanies to the English…
Britain voted to leave the EU. That’s hardly “perfect alignment”. It seems to me one of the biggest reasons for people hoping to leave is that they’re sick of that alignment! They don’t like dancing to Brussels’ tune. They don’t like EU regulations and rules. This may not be a coherent or well-thought-out position, but it gives the EU good reason to hesitate on a free trade deal.
No, you didn’t say that. That said, it seems to me to be a hidden assumption underlying your arguments - something you can’t really make the arguments you’re making without believing that.
If the EU did not find it politically expedient to stick to those rules rigidly, or if we were talking about a different country (like Canada), would you expect them to quickly and easily adopt a frictionless trade agreement? It seems to me that you would, following your argument here. That’s the only way you could make the argument you’re making. And that’s just not the way things work. Frictionless free-trade agreements are notoriously fiddly and difficult affairs, requiring intense scrutiny and negotiation. You cannot just leave a deal like that and expect another equal free trade agreement to materialize. Just for reference, that last deal the UK is scrapping? 4 years of international negotiations from 1969 to 1973, plus two years of internal disagreements (and an 8-year period where they wanted to negotiate but were vetoed by France). Obviously, there’s more to joining the EU than to a free trade agreement, but that’s the magnitude we’re talking about here.
And of course the UK is willing to be more flexible - a no-deal brexit would be suboptimal for the EU, but the EU is still arguing from a position of strength, because a no-deal brexit would be a disaster for the UK. The UK has to be flexible; the EU doesn’t.
The Bank report crashed my computer last night and by the time I got it running again I didn’t have time to retype my whole response, but here goes:
I’m going by what the Leave campaign promised, which is what Leave voters voted for. Actual individual Leave preferences are undoubtedly all over the map.
The EU are already getting their pound of flesh in advance - they’re getting billions in movement of money and business from London to Frankfurt, Paris, etc, they’re getting the humiliation of the UK (and in particular of those who have made political careers out of criticising the EU), and they’re getting an object lesson for any other country thinking of leaving the EU. Spain will undoubtedly want further concessions on Gibraltar but the EU know that anything that economically cripples a UK still in the EU will have blowback on them in short order.
Greece has no grounds for complaint - they lied their asses off with regard to the economic data they provided in their application to join the Eurozone and as a result nearly brought the rest of Europe down with them. I understand that they don’t like the Germans forcing them into austerity measures and to address their widespread institutional corruption but then the Germans don’t like having to pay for the Greeks’ incompetence and venality.
Already answered above. The status quo is already gone, but the EU isn’t going to cripple a UK still in the EU; that would be counterproductive.
Fair enough.
It was actually a gratuitous crack at Donald Trump and his love of walls. I have no reason to believe you hold racist views.
So you’re basically saying that the UK will become a third-world country economically. Good to know.
We can and do know because the UK is already worse off and we haven’t even left yet. And there is no reason to assume that the UK will be better off, whereas there is substantial reason to believe it will be worse off.
They do, actually.
You’re confusing the people pushing for Leave with the people voting for Leave. Who are the people who own the Sun, the Mail, the Telegraph and the other media that have been spewing a steady stream of anti-immigrant and anti-EU propaganda for decades? Who is leading the charge for Brexit now?
No, you’ve just handwaved away mine.
I have read all of it and you are grossly mischaracterising the Bank report. The report does contain a worst-case scenario but it also contains several other scenarios including analyses by several independent sources and with the exception of the analysis from Economists for Free Trade (a pro-Brexit advocacy group linked to Jacob Rees-Mogg) the predictions are all negative for every Brexit scenario. The Bank may be conservative in its analysis but indulgence in hysterical scaremongering is not one of its flaws.
I’m curious as to who these “neutral observers” are you are referring to.
…and you thought you’d get in on the action?