London pushes to take Saudis off EU dirty money blacklist
reuters.com
reuters.com
So, Uk is fine with a country that finances terrorism in the UK itself as long as the elite gets a good chunk of money. At the same time, the UK wants to leave the European Union because immigration is "bad".
What about letting immigrants in, but keeping state-sponsored terrorism out?
All discussions have become so monetary centric that politicians publicly support the vilest of actions if there is money to gain (see Khashoggi torture and murder). The public should bring back some idealism and fight for a better world, not just for money. Otherwise, one day, we will wake up in the Middle Ages.
Since the vote has been thrown, the local population has largely been ignored. Their need at best a second thought in a grand political and cynical battle for power.
I think that you are right. But, why is not these kinds of topics part of the political discourse?
It is elected officials the ones pushing for helping Saudis without first asking them to change their methods. Why is not the same people that do not want to be in the European Union because they are afraid of immigrants being more critical to this real threat to their country?
So, citizens have removed "I am worried about inequality" and "I am worried about terrorism" that will make Saudis intervention part of the concerning trends from their thoughts. And they think just about "I am worried about immigration". Without realizing that ending immigration was never a goal. That racism and xenophobia were packaged for them as an easy solution that problems that nobody talks about.
In engineering is important to state the problem to solve before discussing the solutions. Citizens of the UK talk about solutions, that are not real ones, without realizing that they miss the problem.
I doubt the people who voted for brexit are fine with saudi money.
Not the ordinary Leave voter, sure. But there are links between the upper echelons of the Leave campaign and the upper echelons of Saudi royalty, suggesting that those who pushed for Brexit are happy to deal with the Saudis.
> So, Uk is fine with a country that finances terrorism in the UK itself as long as the elite gets a good chunk of money. At the same time, the UK wants to leave the European Union because immigration is "bad".
UK is itself no stranger for that. London hosts god knows how much laundered money from badlands of the world.
It hosts Altaf Hussain, and god know how many other ex and acting warlords from Africa and Middle East, shielded by UK spy establishments.
its not about whether a country or participants in a country fulfills the criteria set forth in "are they circumventing capital controls to also fund terrorism" guideline
its about the capital controls at all. banks obviously aren't playing ball and the state can only leverage the financial institution's relationship with their central bank to enforce this anyway, parallel non-bank payment systems make it more apparent that all of this a moot point anyway, and the costs to enforce this ideal are extremely high.
obviously no senator can say "maybe we shouldn't try attempt to police terrorism financing", but a 28 country bloc that requires unanimous consent can easily bring sanity back into public resource use, and thats what is happening here.
The malicious simplification of argument.
Immigration will continue after Brexit, just like it does today for Canadians or Thais or Ukrainians or whomever non-EU moving is to the UK. No-one pretends otherwise except sneering anti-Brexiters.
Look, we're going into this together. It's time to stop being dickish and work out what we're going to do in the new reality whether we like it or not. Ridiculing half the population as uneducated xenophobes isn't going to achieve anything.
Free movement is not without consequence, address it honestly, attempt to solve real issues and maybe people come around.
The problem is that unrestricted movement disrupts culture and lowers a lot of social statistics all at once - in a way that can be really disruptive to the host culture.
Similarly, no matter how you explain it, the deal in practice is "We'll take a lot of money from the middle class and give it to the globally impoverished."
Understandably, the people who are just being taken from don't seem to like that deal very much; and cultures which are rapidly disrupted by low-class migrants don't seem to do well.
Never mind that "free movement" is usually just political cover for people looking to import more workers after their leadership and the society they built is so toxic, it's killing the indigenous population. Naturally, the people being fed into the meat grinder and replaced aren't particularly fond of paying for their replacements to be imported.
Talking about "free movement" in that context has about the same tone as "right sizing" your business, while off-shoring.
So, free movement inside the UK should be restricted? The UK should be divided by countries and block free movement? And what happens if two cities have different cultures? I'm different from my neighbors and I feel I have more in common with people from other countries, how to done that? My country is Christian, but I'm an atheist. I am disruptiny the country culture. I'd that bad?
Global communications and exchange of people and ideas has brought riches to the world that were impossible to think of one century ago.
Tribalism has a romantic appealing, but it's based in the falacy of the Noble Savage.
You are right that there is people that will abuse the system. But, that is true for any system. So, is better to try to improve it instead of throwing it away without an alternative.
People should be concerned about losing their jobs, losing wealth, etc. And look for the causes instead of using a straw man.
In the interest of stopping being dickish, you could start by admitting that brexiters are not, in fact, "half of the population". Around 1/4 of the population voted for brexit on the Referendum [1]. Since then, it's likely that some amongst those have changed their opinion, now that more information about how (and how not) the process would (or will not) take place.
> Look, we're going into this together.
I, as a non-UK European, agree on that. UK should have a second referendum, for its shake as well as Europe's.
[1] https://www.indy100.com/article/brexit-leave-remain-52-48-pe...
The reality in question is being denied, ignored or lied about.
> Ridiculing half the population as uneducated xenophobes isn't going to achieve anything.
Agreed - ridiculing won't do anything. But if half of the population are uneducated xenophobes, these problems will persist with/without/before/after leaving the EU. And this shouldn't be ignored.
> sneering anti-Brexiters.
...uh-huh
"The list needs the endorsement of a majority of the 28 EU nations but Britain and other heavyweights of the bloc, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain, are raising concerns, three EU officials told Reuters."
"Britain is the country that is pushing more openly not to include Riyadh in the list, one official said, while Spain is insisting it excludes Panama."
The fall of the British Empire begins with World War 2 and is mostly finished by the independence movements of the early 1960s. Yet "The City" was only deregulated in 1986 under Thatcher.
Since this is annoying some people would you care to reply and explain why the UK should not be represented when it continues to fund the EU?
Then let me suggest one: it violates the intent of democracy, which is government by the consent of the governed. To exert your influence over the rules that others have to live by when you no longer consent to be governed by those rules is just a dick move in my book.
Interestingly, half of those sales are to Saudi Arabia.
It will be an unusually useful flow of money in the months to come because it doesn't depend on a decent trade relationship with the EU to continue.
On a rolling 10 year basis, UK remains the second largest global defence exporter.
In 2017, the UK won defence orders worth £9 billion, up on the previous year’s (£5.9 billion) and further illustrative of the ‘volatile’ nature of the global export market.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defence-and-secur...
Total 2017 exports were $441 billion USD (call it 340 pounds sterling?). https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world...
That looks like about half of what I said in percentage terms. I'd stand by what I said about it being a sizable chunk, though.
(there are some big picture odd and probably important things about these numbers which I haven't even thought about, like, the UK exports F-35s to the United States?!? I'm not sure who gains leverage from that in the trade relationship, but I suspect it's the US.)
[0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpay... m
How odd that the CIA World Factbook was so far off. Thanks.
> Personally I would not describe 0.5% as "a large part" of anything, I would describe it as "a small part", but if you think otherwise we can agree to disagree
I think you're linguistically right, but all this sperging out about the distinction between being a large part of something versus being a small part of an extremely large whole is perhaps missing the point a bit. To Y_Y's original point, which isn't really about the total size of the UK's economy and was of course a bit harsh: a taste of nine billion pounds is more than enough money to cause politicians to behave dishonorably or irrationally and to make some powerful few rich beyond the dreams of avarice. There are some pretty nasty examples of what happens when a slice of that kind of money is at stake in the US government's budgeting process, and I imagine the UK is at least similar.
I think the reality of this is a little more nuanced. By virtue of geography (it's an island) Britain was the last place Germany were able to overrun. This bought time for what remained of the European forces to gather and reorganise, and provided a staging point for further counter-attacks.
The fact is, that Britain has never been invaded, not in modern times anyway, and outside of bombing raids has never known the true humiliation of hearing the foreign powers' jackboot marching down the street.
Just about every other nation in Europe has, and understands the value of the peace that closer union brings about.
>.. but lost the war.
Ultimately being able to claim "they won the war" may have done the UK more harm than good because they were never incentivised to address their deep deep social issues in any kind of a constructive way.
The good that comes out of the brexit fiasco might be that this is an eventual turning point for them.
You can imagine that if Germany made better use of individual European countries, made some high-profile infrastructure and regulatory improvements in the countries that it occupied (as the EU does now), and dramatically toned down the anti-Pole and anti-Jew activities- it would have been a lot more successful in its aims. Heck, mass conversions to Christianity of the Jewish population would probably have been successful, and been supported by many Christians worldwide, and any staunch Jewish holdouts who refused given the opportunity to fight against the British and create and mass-migrate to Israel as a German sub-territory.
Germany could have created a new European identity, and sought new land and direct expansion of European populations into the Middle East and Africa against easier opponents, instead of against Russia.
Eventually it would have just outgrown and outlasted Britain and Russia. Britain as a democracy would have eventually rotated in a set of politicians willing to make peace.
I say all this as the descendent of a Polish Jew :-)
People forget that Churchill was hated by a lot of people - my father (who was in the RAF in WW2) utterly loathed him.
EU decision making for big issues:
1. Leaders of France and Germany meet to draw out a plan.
2. They negotiate with few other big countries to form a block. Valuable horse-trading happens here.
3. The European Council meets and small countries realize that the table is already made for them. They are never part of the process from the start. They are allowed to do some tweaks but that's it.
Germany is one of several large powers in the EU, but small countries have considerable influence, and can and do block decisions/legislation all the time. That's why there is a push to end the national vetos on various issues.
Seriously, the idea that the EU, where the smallest country has a veto over virtually everything, and where Germany is the largest of several large democratic powers, and where everything that happens is a compromise negotiated carefully while balancing dozens of competing interests, is in _any_ way related to "what Germany wanted in WWII" is deeply offensive.
And yet I've encountered it again and again, online and in person. This type of idiotic idea, unbound by the reality of what the EU is and does, and enabled and encouraged by opportunistic press and politicians, is exactly what brought us Brexit.
I was not arguing that and I specially said so in the beginning. Brits are just sore because they won the war but lost the peace (relative to Germany).
Small countries have veto power, but using veto always creates a crisis. That's not proper way to do decisions, but Germany forces it to others.
The inability to be part of the decision process from the beginning is real problem. You either vote to spoil everything or get small confessions, but you are never part of the inner circle.
I also don't accept the idea that others don't have a place at the table for discussions during the drafting phases. These are often run by the EC where smaller countries are represented.
However, the asymmetry of EU members is also really extreme. Germany has 160 times as many inhabitants as Malta. Germany, the UK, France and Italy already make up 54% of EU population.[1]
With the UK out, the four biggest, Germany, France, Italy and Spain will be at more than 57%. So obviously there is a really difficult balancing act here.
But really, please point to any development in the last 5 years or so that functioned according to the "Germany and France decide and the EU goes in that direction". Germany and France wanted a Tobin Tax and couldn't get it, Germany wanted refugees to be distributed and couldn't get it, Germany and France wanted stricter Tax rules in the EU and didn't get it. They wanted to end unanimty on Tax rules and it looks like they are not getting that either.
[1] If you think back to the start of the EU, among the 6 founding members Germany and France represented more than 2/3rds of the population. So the top four countries together don't have nearly as much weight as France/Germany had in the beginning. I guess this is the main reason that the France-Germany axis is not as prominent as it once was.
So...the main power in Europe is not Germany, it's 'France and Germany'. Important distinction.
This whole thing about fitting up Germany to be the puppet master is just ignorance borne of envy for their social model, industrial output and success on the international export market.
Who would say is the main power?
But if you think Germany can actually tell any country on how to vote you need a European history lesson.
It's definitely a significant power but I don't see how you could argue that it's "clearly" the main continental power.
However it's probably the regional power with the highest nuisance potential for the EU (alongside Turkey).
Any power Germany had, has, or will have, is fragile, not only because we are quite exposed geographically, but also because the idea of "Germany" was always so dynamic. A fragile power is no power. You may argue with Taleb that this makes the country antifragile, but personally I find it extremely unrealistic for Germany to hold any status other than "economic" power for an extended period of time. It wasn't achieved in over 1250 years since Charles the Great, and not for lack of trying.
Also, this bit made me laugh:
> Germany [...] quite exposed geographically
Yes, squeezed between Poland and Belgium? Or perhaps Czech Republic and the Netherlands? Austria and Denmark? All these scary countries around! I can promise you the Czechs aren't planning any attacks on the exposed Germany just yet :)
This is 100% true, and as the number of people who experienced WWII and the holocaust is rapidly declining, the German political elite is on a desperate search for another national identity. I fear that if they are not successful, we will see strong separatist movements in some areas of Germany during the next 10-30 years.
> Yes, squeezed between Poland and Belgium? Or perhaps Czech Republic and the Netherlands? Austria and Denmark? All these scary countries around!
I meant that Germany has almost no natural borders, except the Alps, the Rhine and a tiny amount of coast. I can assure you that this is extremely present in the German mindset, and has been for centuries. It may explain the general "nervousness" of Germans, and is also one of the reasons the refugee crisis had such a significant impact on German politics. It is true that we are surrounded by friends, but the part you find laughable - the small military power of most of our neighboring nations, with the exception of France - is at the same time the main reason Germany has to be nervous. If somebody wanted to invade us, they would just walk over the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, or Switzerland. I am 31. When I was 2, half of Germany was still de facto occupied by Russia.
See, this is the part I find worrying! :)
děkuju moc! And greetings from germany :)
Czech is a wonderful language by the way. It's sad there is so little interest for your country in Germany.
As for the flag: I doubt it's a such a big deal. It's unpopular in educated circles to some degree but I'm worried quite more about all the people using the Imperial War Flag to demonstrate their disdain for modern democracy.
Well, there was Cromwell [0] but maybe that's part of the problem ...
This seems in bad taste, atm considering the ongoing divorce proceedings.
More seriously, I wonder what this is really about. Money laundering has become an enormously hairy term. It could mean just about anything.
I suspect this about housing the piles of money officials, oligarchs, warlords and aristocrats from these countries accumulate. No one wants to keep their $6bn in Yemen. It's not safe there.
Saudi has a huge, wealthy aristocracy. It's no secret that a lot of them are heavily invested in the UK, notably London real estate.
Considering the "game of thrones" event where prince MLB locked up half his own family and extorted... princely sums from them... I imagine the desire to get your loot away from the middle east has just gotten keener.
Before the EU's 5th AML Directive the transactions could be attributed to shell corps and trusts. So long as KSA is on the high-risk jurisdiction list the transactions will now need to be attributed to both the entity (corporation/trust/etc.) and the natural person directing the transaction on behalf of the entity (trustee/corporate director/etc.) and the ultimate beneficial owner (beneficiary of a trust/majority shareholder of a corp/etc.). This would understandably make it much easier to track the flow of Saudi funds and much more difficult for Saudi Arabia to avoid.
The saudi government is horrible and is being supported by the US government (and financially by EU countries)
Start THERE!
Huzzah for Brexit.
These people have no integrity.
Who are you talking about here?
Although ours aren't unique in that regard.