The EU is beginning to believe the UK wants Brexit trade talks to fail
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
I thought that was accepted fact at this stage.
Super short arguably impossible deadline, little progress, then COVID happens and the UK insists keeping said deadline anyway?
Meanwhile the UK home press is hitting their population with quality gems like:
>EU civil war erupts: States furious as Barnier poised to surrender [0]
Anyone expecting in-good-faith negotiations is in for a surprise.
[0] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1287373/Brexit-news-Michel...
From what I remember the terms set by the EU would've put the UK in a worse position than what caused Brexit in the first place, making people steadily lean more and more towards a "just get it over with, no-deal Brexit".
They don't have to be better than what caused the Brexit, they have to be better than a no-deal Brexit. Why would they expect to get better treatment by leaving than by staying?
The EU's position can be boiled down like this: if you're geographically in or close to Europe, you must submit to total control by the EU Commission and its courts or be frozen out of all intra-European collaboration completely. Any attempt at compromise just results in them starting to talk about cherries and cakes. It's been like that for years.
This is a problem because the EU is not a democratic body. There's a "parliament" but its members can't actually change EU law, and at any rate, a single parliament for all of Europe works about as well as you'd expect. For them to issue ultimatums to European populations of the form "submit entirely or we'll force other Europeans to shun you" is totalitarian and should be raising massive alarm bells around the world. UK today, but it could be your country tomorrow.
The UK’s position “we want to keep free trade, but don’t want to abide to the rules that go with it, and there definitely can’t be a border between the UK and Ireland in Northern Ireland, but there must be one between Europe and the UK” won elections at home, but they never could have expected the EU to accept them.
- a brit.
At the start, Barnier's "negotiation" consisted of a series of demands of the form "after leaving, why don't you continue to obey us in all respects, except without any representation and oh, keep paying us lots of money: the only alternative is a Canada style free trade deal". He proposed this knowing Theresa May felt a simple Canada style deal wasn't acceptable.
BoJo replaced May and the first act after the leadership change was to go back to the EU and say - OK, we've thought about it and we'll take the Canada style deal.
Guess what? Suddenly Barnier decided actually a Canada style deal wasn't on the table after all. This, after years of using it as an example of the loosest possible outcome. Now the EU invented a new rule, that this kind of loose trade deal is only available to countries geographically far away. Why? Because screw Brexit, that's why. There's literally no justification for this.
As a Brit I've come to hold the EU in absolute contempt. It isn't interested in any kind of reasonable post-Brexit relationship. It's gambling everything on an attempt to crush British independence completely. At this point the EU's position is simply: stay in the EU or we won't work together on anything, anywhere at all. That's unacceptable. Time to go.
There is no exit that puts the UK in a better position because it imagines itself to have power and influence that it does not possess. Personally, I am now resigned to looking forward to no-deal Brexit so that the midlands, coastal fishing villages that should have ceased to exist decades ago, and rural counties can get the royal economic fucking they deserve.
Boris somehow thinks that by sucking up to Trump he is going to get some magic trade deal to save himself, but any deal needs to get through the US House and they are not even going to bother putting it on the calendar. Nothing will happen until the start of the Biden administration and since they will be focused on domestic issues and repairing frayed foreign ties in this first 100 days you are looking at nothing for at least a year. The UK is so hosed it is almost funny, but at least it will drive down London property prices...
It is standard negotiating OP by both sides. Just take a look at the Troika / Greece negotiations: breakthroughs come at the very last minute.
Extending the transition period merely lengthens the phoney negotiations.
> There is no exit that puts the UK in a better position because it imagines itself to have power and influence that it does not possess.
Viewed through an economic lens, Brexit will do damadge, certainly in the short term. Medium to long term depends on whether the Tories learn drop austerity and to love Keynes . It seems Sunak does, going by short record so far.
Viewed through a political / sovereignty lens the argument for Brexit is on a stronger footing.
Debts get repaid, one way (with repayment) or another (welshing and never being trusted again)
The UK has the advantage of printing its own currency so it can engage in monetary financing if the situation warrants it; an option not available to Euro economies.
I have my serious doubts. Spending large amounts of money wisely or blowing it wildly can look the same (HS2?) but the outcome is different.
> The UK has the advantage of printing its own currency
I'm not an economist - how does this work? Is this any different from a person getting indebted on a credit card? Honest question.
Austerity takes money out of a contracting economy making the situation worse, creating a vicious cycle, and whats worse hollowing out govt services (NHS, policing, education). Austerity is dangerous on a number of levels.
> Is this any different from a person getting indebted on a credit card? Honest question.
Yes, its completely different. Debt creates a liability, it needs to be paid back.
Monetary financing - aka helicopter money - is precisely the opposite.
The central bank "prints" money: it can be credited to the govt's account, or the CB can directly credit household bank accounts with money created from thin air. No new liabilities are created.
The problems with monetary financing is that it can get addictive; its use outside of situations of extreme economic distress is the biggest risk with its use.
Because it undermines CB policy and leads to hyper inflation and ruining the economy. Some CBs are legally proscribed from engaging in helicopter money for good reason.
> There have to be liabilities to it.
You mean balance sheet liabilities? None. The money is recorded as an asset "receivable" on CB balance sheet.
It does add up :D Japan has been doing it for a decade (for the wrong reasons unfortunately).
For layman overview; most mainstream financial news sites like the FT and Bloomberg do a good job:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-05/how-long-...
https://www.ft.com/content/fd1d35c4-7804-11ea-9840-1b8019d9a...
Is there a peaceful route? Or will the Troubles be reignited?
While Brexit is bad economically, the political argument is different.
I'm afraid you are seriously mistaken. Just take court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament.
Politics is very much not economics, at least when it comes to Brexit.
As for "court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament", given the way the government has abused its powers at times, I'd like a higher court than the UK one.
BTW I did raise a question illegality by the UK government with the EU. Stuff started to get done. The UK government's standard brush-off to being challenged on something they don't want to answer to, is "it's not in the public interest". Which is bullshit.
If the UK government wasn't so tossy and incompetent, I might be a lot more sympathetic to "court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament"
As long as they can blame somebody else (the EU, remainers, the global situation) they will be happy. They want to mould the UK into their own vision and don't care how many people are disadvantaged in the process.
The UK has submitted a lot of ideas for various compromise positions, some of them incredible compromises that nearly amount to not leaving at all.
The EU has rejected all of them completely. It's even rejected proposals from the UK that were the EU's own suggestions.
It's just bad faith at this point. The EU itself is an ideology, an overwhelmingly cult-like one. They bend over backwards to make it hard to leave. The president of France has literally said that "there must be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price" with leaving it. That's not how cooperative groups of allies are usually described, is it?
Like with all such organisations they can't stand the idea of compromise because they know that many countries have large populations that don't like the EU. From their perspective if they bend here, if show flexibility and have friendly post-Brexit UK relations, then a whole lot of other countries will start to want out. Ultimately the EU is a bad deal: an all or nothing "with us or against us" proposition. If they cut a deal with the UK that allows local concerns of local voters to start mattering, the EU as a project of ideological unification will be over within a few years.
What the heck?
A ZDF (German Television) report said: “In Brussels they say that the EU has has asserted itself all along the line. PM May had to swallow a lot.”
Indeed Theresa May repeatedly broke her own supposed red lines. Here's a summary of 40 things in the so-called withdrawal agreement:
https://hrp-historicalreviewpress.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-t...
It contains elements like these:
- May says her deal means the UK leaves the EU next March. The Withdrawal Agreement makes a mockery of this. “All references to Member States and competent authorities of Member States…shall be read as including the United Kingdom.” (Art 6)
- The European Court of Justice is decreed to be our highest court, governing the entire Agreement
- The UK will still be bound by any future changes to EU law in which it will have no say, not to mention having to comply with current law.
- Any disputes under the Agreement will be decided by EU law only
- The definition of UK citizen becomes controlled by the EU i.e. the EU would effectively control British elections by deciding who can vote in them.
- The EU and its employees are to be immune to UK tax law (even if they live in the UK)
- The UK agrees not to prosecute EU employees who are, or who might be deemed in future, criminals
Similar advantages and immunities are extended to all former MEPs and to former EU official more generally
- The General Data Protection Regulation is to be bound into UK law
- The Lifetime clause: the agreement will last as long as the country’s youngest baby lives
- The UK will tied to EU foreign policy, “bound by the obligations stemming from the international agreements concluded by the Union” but unable to influence such decisions
- All EU citizens must be given permanent right of residence after five years – but what counts as residence? This will be decided by the EU, rather than UK rules
- The UK agrees to spend taxpayers’ money telling everyone how wonderful the agreement is
- The EU decide capital projects (too broadly defined) the UK is liable for
- The UK is bound by EU state aid laws until future agreement – even in the event of an agreement, this must wait four years to be valid
- The UK will be liable for future EU lending
etc etc. It goes on like this.
This so-called "deal" was actually written in Brussels, by the EU, and Theresa May agreed to it! The only reason the UK/EU are still negotiating is that this attempted deal was so terrible even a Remain-dominated Parliament couldn't agree to it.
Of course May resigned eventually after trying three times to get this agreement through Parliament, and there was a leadership change.
The EU had originally insisted that given the original goals of Brexit, the only possible outcome sans compromise was a Canada-style deal. They even made a helpful slide that showed this:
https://twitter.com/Number10press/status/1229893225663602693
At the time Theresa May felt that was unacceptable, hence the use as a pressure tactic. Johnson felt differently, and the EU wasn't willing to negotiate in good faith anyway, so went back and said "fine, we'll take the Canada deal". So Barnier changed his mind and decided actually a Canada-style deal wasn't an option anymore.
It's just time wasting nonsense at this point. The EU is rejecting options it has itself proposed. It's bad faith and the UK should walk away.
Brexit will have an impact on us and the UK. Fine. Now get out and the one who is most interested will be back with negotiations.
I fully understand that there will be impacts. As of now it looks like two old persons who are making their live miserable, but in the name of some vague conventions do not want to divorce.
I'm not sure this belongs on HN though. As you might gather, this is 100% politics in its purist form.
Which is crazy; either the UK has left the EU and so cannot enjoy the same market access as a member, and the EU correspondingly has reduced access to UK market, or else there is full access for both parties.
Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-fishing-in-troubled-wa...
Oh, and a large chunk of the fishing rights to those waters were sold by UK fishermen to EU fishermen several decades ago.
This worked well in the North Sea, but it seems that those zone are not respected at all by English Fishermen in the English Channel (i only have anecdata from partisan fishermen so take this with a grain of salt).
The Bretons think the french coastal police only prohibit French nationnals to fish in protected waters and do nothing about English fishermen, and this is causing ressentment. Most fishes they catch in the english channel are not consummed by the UK but sold to French consummers anyway, and this is not really helping (also the support for free market is dropping real fast around here).
The opinion in britanny right now about fish is "please no deal!" Most of them don't care if the access to UK waters is cut: they know that if the English channel fisheries can't sell in France, they will soon start to sell access to those waters.
Tbh, i'm starting to think this is the best long-term solution. Either we lose something big and we will be renegotiating terms shortly after, causing short-term losses but long-term gains, or nothing of importance really happens economically and everyone is happy.