I can’t see a short extension flying unless there’s a clear plan for resolving this once and for all in the duration. Given experience, I’d be somewhat skeptical.
Is the EU agreement to this extension more or less guaranteed?
Because I’m not terribly convinced so far that the UK is likely to have found a solution in three months, six months or one year…
There is some truth to what you’re saying, but I think it’s more misleading than on point.
Britain actually has a pretty robust media that regularly asks tough questions. And, while british politicians are experts at *dodging *questions, there’s far less scope for outright *lying *than in other countries that may come to mind.
So what went wrong?
Well firstly I am not a big believer in referendums (referenda?) – often only a minority of people know very much about an issue and the rest are voting on passion. But particularly a referendum where the choices are “status quo” and “something else” is a bad idea, and I hope the UK has been a good example for the rest of the world in this respect.
The actual handling of Brexit has been godawful, nobody could contest that. But that’s not in itself a failure of the political system, if we’re saying democracy works as long as the public are aware of what’s happening, and can express their displeasure at the ballot box…then democracy is still working. Everyone knows the current crop of politicians are particularly shit, and it’s an open goal for either party to reform, or for even a third party to gain momentum, ahead of the next election. It’s just a shame the country will be circling the drain by then.
I don’t think the EU granting, and the UK accepting, an extension is guaranteed. From what I recall, the EU leadership said they were open to extending the withdrawal date, but they wanted to know what the UK government’s plan was for the extended time period. If the UK government’s plan is more of the same, the EU leadership could very well decline (unlikely, but possible), demand some kind of concession such as if no backstop agreement is reached, the UK will stay in the customs union (semi-likely), or demand that the UK extend the withdrawal date, possibly to July 2021 (semi-likely). Would parliament accept a counterproposal after rejecting May’s Brexit plan? Who knows?
UK needs to ask for an extension for some reason (general election, second referendum, change in what it’s asking for). Just asking for an extension for a few months because they don’t know what they’re doing doesn’t “count”.
Also the EU has said extending for 2 years is preferable to a few months.
In the UK side, the ERG doesn’t want to extend. This may not change a ton, because May would have to find support from outside the ERG whether she’s trying to extend or get any realistic deal through parliament.
Here is a Washington Post article by the always impressive Anne Applebaum concerning one Arron Banks. He sounds like an interesting fellow. Venal, but interesting.
Are his machinations getting much air time in the UK? Or, like in the US, are they just lost in the rising ocean of malfeasance?
Is it likely to be the case, as Applebaum suggests, that a post-Brexit UK (and thus any UK-EU trade) would be exempt from the strict financial regulation that the EU enforces on its members?
Just speaking for myself, I’m aware of Arron Banks and the issues with the Leave.eu campaign, and he does seem quite shady, but I haven’t noticed any front-page scandals involving him. Maybe a Guardian or Observer reader would have seen headlines about him.
Also, it should be noted that the main Leave campaign was Vote Leave. Leave.eu was a related, somewhat affiliated campaign, but it was one of several. It’s main notoriety was that Nigel Farage was a supporter, and that they were fined by the Electoral Commission after the referendum.
That’s a tricky question, especially for a concise answer. The main financial regulatory body in the UK is the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). I think the general sentiment is that it’s on par with the EU’s European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) or the US’s Security and Exchanges Commission (SEC). Post Brexit, the FCA is expected to maintain its current regulatory stances, and to continue working with ESMA. So the short answer to the question is “No”.
The issue with the UK, though, is that it is seen as a safe haven for billionaires from around the world. The owner of Chelsea Football Club, Roman Abramovich, is a Russian oligarch who moved many of his billions to Britain before buying the team, and still has ties to the Russian government and industrial interests. Also, just today, The Telegraph has reported about Nirav Modi, an Indian billionaire accused of fraud living in London. India's most wanted man Nirav Modi - accused of £1.5bn fraud - living openly in London (paywalled)
These billionaires conduct business throughout the world, and the FCA only regulates the business they conduct in the UK, which is most likely legal. Furthermore, their overseas earnings are most likely funnelled to overseas accounts. British crown dependencies such as Guernsey, and British Overseas Territories, such as the Cayman Islands are often where these overseas accounts are located, and there are close ties between offshore financial centres (OFC’s) and British-based wealth management firms. There is a movement within Parliament to force the OFC’s to be more transparent, and that movement has been delayed by Brexit. British MPs Complain About Registers 'Delays' - Bernews And it’s certainly probable that firms that do business with OFC’s will lobby to maintain the status quo and oppose reform.
Moving on to analyse Anne Applebaum’s statement “If Brexit was the creation, in part, of this new world of offshore money and political influence campaigns, Brexit may well ensure that it continues unrestricted.” There’s a basis for it as a conspiracy theory. However, that theory ignores the fact that anti-EU sentiment in the UK has been around for decades. It ignores the fact that the UK parliament was debating OFC transparency independent of the EU. And it ignores the fact that other EU members, specifically France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, have similar relationships with OFC’s as the UK. So as a theory, it makes a nice soundbite, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Does your pantry have enough storage space to make it likely you can get all of your shopping needs met with fewer than three trips?
Spaniards who pay attention to the news have learned where Jersey and Guernsey are located thanks to being used as tax havens by several of our politicians; one of the items that’s been in our news for the last couple of weeks is an agreement to try and keep Gibraltar from being even more of a laundromat than it already is. The general reputation of those areas which are “not officially UK but under UK sovereignity” is good if you have money to launder, shitty if you’re the people chasing that money.
Maybe 197% of what they’ll be able to profitably sell without access to the EU market.
So Andorra is no longer the Spanish tax haven of choice?
I’m pretty sure Baron Greenback nailed it in post #171. During lambing season, farmers hire mobile ultrasound units to come around and see how many fetuses each ewe has inside her. It helps with planning and farmers with the barn area to do so will bring ewes with triplets inside as their pregnancy is higher risk. Youtube “Countryfile” if you’re interested.
Or, if you’re making a joke about export sales of lamb falling by half, my guess is the government would step in with some kind of intervention, probably in the form of a temporary subsidy resulting in lamb being cheaper at the supermarket.
To try and turn this into a real question, do I think the UK government has enough administrative capacity to handle funding requests that, post-Brexit, formerly went to the EU, but now are going to the UK government? Yes. As noted previously, most grant requestors send applications to both the UK and EU governments. So any UK increase in the amount of work processing grants should be modest, and would be distributed across the several separate agencies that consider grants.
Why only temporary?
And the ironic thing is that the solution is standing there in plain sight, like a mountain rising from the middle of a plain (i.e. revoking the Article 50 declaration). The snag is that it’s been painted pink and had a SEP field erected around it.
So, Mrs May has brought back some fudge from Brussels. Will this be enough to get her withdrawal agreement through Parliament? Maybe, or maybe not. Whatever, it is now decision time, and this phase of the nightmare is drawing to a close.
The ERG hate the proposed withdrawal agreement, since they rightly see it tying the UK to the EU forever. Not just or even mainly because of the ‘Irish backstop’ / Ulster issues, but because they see that public opinion has drifted around to an overwhelming majority valuing the benefits of EU membership. For example, the farmers who mainly voted leave but insist on maintaining the EU barriers to cheap imports, frictionless access to EU markets and subsidies at EU levels. Unless they get to have their cake and eat it, which they won’t, they will have to accept staying in.
The withdrawal agreement’s transitional period gives us another couple of years of excruciating debate to reinforce the message that we don’t actually want to give up any of the benefits of membership, and that the leavers’ leaders in Parliament can’t deliver any of the promised benefits of Brexit. If the public is horrified by our performance in negotiations so far, just wait until they have to watch us against the Americans, Chinese and Japanese. Though I suspect the most humiliating lessons will come from the negotiations with the Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders - whom many leavers seem to expect to agree to revert to an agricultural and raw materials based economy so that we can rebuild our manufacturing industry as the workshop of the world as well as the supplier of all commercial services. And most importantly, negotiations with the EU must continue, with the UK in an even weaker position!
So, ultimately the transitional period would be extended indefinitely, or the UK would rejoin. I’m happy either way. Perhaps ironically, I don’t care if the UK is represented in EU decision making, though I do believe that the UK has made a generally positive contribution to EU legislation which many of our European friends would be sad to lose. Maybe Germany would ultimately reject BRINO and insist that we return to being full members?! If we did rejoin, I’d be happy to join the Schenghen zone, adopt the euro, give up our opt-outs on social legislation and transfer sovereignty in Gibraltar to Spain. This whole sad sorry mess could easily result in leavers losing more of the things they care passionately about, and which remainers are relatively unconcerned about. Perhaps that was inevitable. Remainers will be happy enough provided we effectively retain all our individual rights as EU citizens, and that business remains within the Single Market.
Of course there are other options. Remain means remain, and if we revoke Article 50 before the end of the A50 period, then we keep all our current ‘EU+++’ terms. That should tempt some (former) leavers.
Or, there is still time to crash out with no agreement. Some MPs are arguing for that. They must presumably believe their own rhetoric that in the short term it won’t be too bad, and in the long term even advantageous. I don’t see it myself, and we will find out very soon if we go down that path. Which after all remains the default outcome unless MPs seize control of the process.
There is a lot of talk about a second referendum. I’m not seeing it myself. Like crashing out, it gives MPs only a few days to avoid taking responsibility. I’ll believe a referendum is likely when Mr Corbyn stands up and states unequivocally what referendum outcome he personally will be campaigning for.
We live in very interesting times! 
#brexitmeansbrexit, #takingbackcontrol, #theyneedusmorethanweneedthem, #weholdallthecards, #strongandstable
Tax haven and money laundering place are different things.
Getting Andorra residency is what’s needed to use the “tax haven” feature. It’s actually legal if you do manage to follow the correct steps, and used mainly by people who by the very nature of their jobs are very likely to spend less than 182 days in any given country during any given year (athletes, musicians). It is not possible to simultaneously follow the requirements for Andorran residency (required to file taxes in Andorra) and Spanish residency (required to hold office in Spain).
Money laundering is something for which Andorra is used, but not by itself. The Pujols for example had money in at least Andorra (very convenient from Barcelona), Guernsey and Luxembourg.
ETA: the original confusion between tax haven and money laundering spot was actually mine.
Yes, a lot of the “We don’t want the EU telling us what to do!” crowd seem unaware that in many, many areas the UK has been the driving force behind EU legislation. In financial services, for example, over 90% (IIRC) of EU regulation mirrors what the UK were already doing because most of it came from the UK.
Well Geoffrey Cox is no longer on Theresa May’s Christmas card list.
UK Attorney General Cox published his legal advice on the addendums to the withdrawal agreement earlier this morning.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/785188/190312_-_Legal_Opinion_on_Joint_Instrument_and_Unilateral_Declaration_co…__2.pdf (PDF)
The DUP and some hardline Brexiteers were drifting towards voting yes for the agreement. I’m pretty sure they’ve just returned to their prior positions.