Britain’s Brexit prospects are not as catastrophic as Project Fear warned
The failure to reach an agreement with Europe, which is a real possibility, would be acceptable in the short-term and positive in the long. Out of the top five export markets, three are outside the EU

Hardly rocket surgery, is it?
As a company there’ll be two options when the EU slams the door. cease trading and make folks redundant or brazen it out intil we get back on an even keel. What the Brexshitters have to do is prove that new trade deals will be significantly better than the current ones. And aslo don’t forget that a large number of people opposed to leave will be grafting to make it work, so don’t get smug just yet.
Your ability to see a future is phenomenal, let’s drill down and offer specifics now.

Mike,manhole with half a brain knew that the five core promises ere BS. You can’t deliver BS unless you are a bull and I see no horns on the PM

Hence withdrawal of promises, people believed them.

The courts are not ruling on Brexshit, they are ruling on the simple issue of AoP v Royal Preogative

And again tm knows how much shit it will unleash and tear the Tories apart. Still a reasonable bet on parliament knocking her back.
May not have been asleep but getting selective

jambalaya – Member

@kelvin politicians are well advised to put assets in blind trusts to avoid any notion that they are influencing policy for personal gain.

Jamba – completely agree, but did you accidentally post this in the wrong thread?

Nice

This is interesting. Acting in line with “democracy”, doing what the “overwhelming” majority of Britons want, respecting the referendum result appears to be causing folk to tust politicians less (excepting UKIP).

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/16/britons-trust-in-government-media-business-falls-sharply?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-2

Not surprised really when interest of acting in our interests, they meekly do whatever they’re told in a very narrow referendum. Anyone could do that and on minimum wage too.

Time to grow up and do what you were elected to do guys?

Just to be clear there’s more trust (though hardly resounding) in the EU than in our politicians.

Addressing institutions, 18% of respondents said they trust political parties in general to “do what is right” compared with 19% for political leaders, 27% for the EU, 55% for the British people and 88% for family.

If the £ stays this low will Trump really want a trade deal that undercuts his own countries industry?

The low cost of paying people to build cars in pesos has been a huge part of his ‘campaign’

Getting into bed with trump sounds dangerous to me (watersports aside)

Trump has already said he wants a 35% import tax on all cars built outside the USA.
He has already made it clear that includes us here in Europe, not just Mexico.
Other industries have been mentioned as well, including high tech areas we aspire to compete in.

I like that 35% tax on imported car, it’s an idea the a free Yorkshire could copy. 35% on imported ewes n tups for a start.

Trump has already said he wants a 35% import tax on all cars built outside the USA.

Hopefully that’ll mean they won’t have to try and sell their junk over here.

Should I buy my euros now or wait til the pound rallies in March?

@old indeed meant for NHS thread where May was being discussed.

IMF gives UK largest growth forecast upgrade, more humble pie admitting it got Brexit forecasts wrong

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/01/16/imf-makes-u-turn-britains-economic-prospects-brexit-fears-prove/

Things are going to be tough for sure going forward if I am right about the eurozone but the Brexit campaign BS is being shown for what it was

What did they do with the 2017 forecast?

What are they predicting for this year v last year?rrr

The International Monetary Fund has revised up its growth forecast for the UK this year, but pencilled in a downgrade for 2018 as the fund expects the economic pain of Brexit to be delayed rather than avoided.

IMF gives UK largest growth forecast upgrade, more humble pie admitting it got Brexit forecasts wrong

Forecasts that assumed we’d be leaving the EU 6 months earlier than we will be.
Of course the forecasts need revising, especially for 2017.
Still worse than the forecasts which were based on leaving being stopped completely.

Hopefully that’ll mean they won’t have to try and sell their junk over here.

We will accept GMO and hormone beef a complete break up of the NHS in exchange for 34% tariffs on imports.

And we will rejoice that we have a trade deal.

What’s the tax rate for gimmers mt

Jamba – does that graph basically show everyone up to some extent due to a) improving economic conditions globally and b) Brexit being delayed by going on 12 months – with the exception of Italy who are dangerously close to following us down the Brexit route (but wavering) and are complete political basket cases (again)?

I noted on Fox (sorry Sky) News they were talking about the signs of a eurozone recovery looking good. Which, if true, would mean that we’ve walked away at exactly the wrong moment.

Ok so growth across 2017 & 2018 has been revised up by 0.05% per annum.

Well better than down but not as good as it could have been with a remain decision.

Nowt like a canny shifting gimmer from the high ground…..

From The Spectator

May’s plan for Britain

The backdrop to Theresa May’s Brexit speech tomorrow is almost as interesting as the speech itself promises to be. First, there’s the government’s very deliberate decision to make clear – via a Philip Hammond interview in the German press – that Britain will play hardball if it can’t secure a decent deal with the EU. Hammond made clear to Welt am Sonntag that if the UK can’t negotiate a reasonable new trading arrangement with the EU then it is prepared to slash tax and regulation to make its economy more competitive. This is a deliberate attempt to play on European worries about having some kind of Singapore West on its doorstep.

Hammond’s intervention is striking because he had been the senior Cabinet minister most wary about the economic consequences of Brexit. This interview showed he is no longer fighting a rear-guard action in government to try and keep the UK in the single market but is instead in ‘how to make Brexit work’ mode.

Then, there is Donald Trump and his talk of a trade deal with the UK and his prediction that other countries will follow the UK out of the EU. Now, the UK government, obviously, isn’t in control of this talk. There’s also no doubt it puts backs up in Brussels and other EU capitals, making them more defensive and more reluctant to compromise. But the talk of a US deal also shows that the UK has options outside the EU, that it doesn’t come as a supplicant to the exit negotiations. This is helpful to the UK’s position.

Finally, there’s the Barnier leak. The Guardian had a cracking story on Saturday about how the EU’s chief negotiator had told MEPs about how he wanted a ‘special’ deal to guarantee EU firms and countries access to the City of London’s financial markets. The leak was a reminder that there are huge risks for the EU in cutting itself off from the eurozone’s de-facto banking and financial capital. As James notes, Europe’s need for the City of London is why, ultimately, a deal may be done.

Combine this with the other developments that have strengthened the UK’s negotiating hand – the resilience of the UK economy, Trump and Francois Fillon’s attitudes to Russia, and the failure of Scottish independence to gain support post-Brexit – and May can be more confident of getting a good deal than she would have been on the day she became PM. But it should be remembered that leaving the single market and the customs union, which is where the UK government is heading, is something that May can deliver herself.

@igm yes there has been and will be a short term cost to leaving, my view is the future benefits are much greater.

Also from the Spectator

Spectator

The Brexiteers turn on the plebd
15 January 2017 2:05 PM
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The trouble with plebiscites is that they leave the plebs stranded. A complicated issue is reduced to one question: should we leave the EU, yes or no. Nowhere on the ballot does it ask whether we should leave the single market or currency union, crash into the WTO without trade agreements with the rest of the world, or tear up employment protections. There is just the deceptively simple question. It provides no guidance to which of the thousands of possible futures we could chose when it is answered.

The Leavers might have interpreted the referendum result as meaning Britain should embrace the Norway model; and pay the price for staying in the single market by accepting free movement. They might have interpreted the vote as meaning we should stay in the Customs Union, as we do not have the trade negotiators to cut new deals with half the planet. The world does not owe Britain a living, after all, and will want as large a slice of our industry as it can take. As Donald Trump’s advisor Wilbur Ross said, the UK’s withdrawal from the EU was a ‘God-given opportunity’ for London’s financial rivals.

Instead, the government has decided that vote leave meant vote hard Brexit. Philip Hammond is now saying Britain might become an Atlantic Singapore. He told Welt am Sonntag that if Britain was left closed off from European markets, it would consider abandoning the European-style social model, with ‘European-style taxation systems, European-style regulation systems’ and ‘become something different’.

‘We could be forced to change our economic model, and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do.’
We were not told Brexit would mean tearing up worker, environmental and consumer protections. On the contrary, the vote was meant to be a chance for the ‘left behind’ to ‘take back control’ of their lives. Hammond is now saying, or at least threatening, that control will pass to employers who can break free of ‘European-style’ restrictions on how they treat their workforce and corporations, who can break free of safety and environmental standards, and see their tax bills slashed. In the name of taking back control, ordinary people will lose what protections they have, and see the corporate tax take for public services fall.

EU labour protections are significant. They guarantee paid holidays, and childcare. They forbid discrimination against employees on grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. When some of us tried to warn that Brexit would give the Tories the right to tear them up, we were denounced as liars misleading the public in the service of ‘project fear’. Andrea Leadsom and Gisela Stuart huffed indignantly in the Times in June that it was a ‘scare’ to suggest ‘there will be a bonfire of employment regulations after Brexit’ and the fat cats of industry will be ‘allowed to run free’.

Now it appears we may become a low regulation, low tax country where we bend the knee to every oligarch and asset stripper who wants to move here. The plebs may or may not get control of immigration from the plebiscite. But they will find control of their rights and lives slipping ever-further from them.

So here is the first problem with plebiscites. You only get the one vote, and there are no follow up questions. You might object that Leave won, and is entitled, like any other victor in British parliamentary politics, to govern and be judged by the electorate at the next election. But, and here is the second trouble with plebiscites, who is there to hold to account? The Tories in Vote Leave and Ukip supporters in Leave.EU made the promises about Brexit. When they won, they dissolved. Hammond and May, who voted to Remain, are leading the government. They are under no obligation to keep promises about Brexit made by others. Indeed, one assumes that, if they were sincere in June, they would keep us in the EU if it were up to them. Rather than being recognisable British politicians, they are almost civil servants carrying out a policy they regard as mistaken.

So here is the second problem with plebiscites: we have a government which is taking a dangerous position on trade that may threaten our jobs and living standards, and is threatening to take an ultra-conservative position on workers rights and corporate power, in the name of ‘the people,’ whose permission they did not seek, and because of a referendum, whose outcome they deplore.

More from that fine publication

The British people, whose good nature is so frequently abused, could have done with hearing today’s argument from Daniel Hannan during the referendum campaign, could they not? Before he and his band of zealots received authorisation to manage our economic and political future it would have been good manners if they had told us how far they wanted to go.

All the way, seems to be the answer now. In the bluff language of a drunk roaring on friends in a barroom brawl, Hannan tells us on the Spectator website not to be ‘wusses’. So what if, and contrary to what they told us last year, Brexit now means crashing out of the single market and customs union. Why are you frightened of that, you wusses, you wimps, you bedwetting liberal pussies? Manly Britain can just muscle its way into the World Trade Organisation and accept it tariffs. It wouldn’t be ‘the end of the world’.

Churchill said a fanatic is a man who ‘can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject’. Having been fanatical about the EU all their lives Hannan and his sect cannot change the subject to the difficult and painstaking conversation we need about protecting our livelihoods.

Rather than acknowledging difficulties, the fanatic dismisses the single market with the nonchalant confidence of the single-minded. Hannan breezily tells you not to worry about Britain’s need to avoid massively complicated global trade negotiations by staying in the EU’s customs union.

Norway ‘stands outside,’ he booms, and it manages well enough.

So it does. Hannan somehow forgets to mention, however, that Norway is a member of the single market. Many Tories however, and most ominously, Theresa May herself, reject the sensible Norwegian compromise because Norway still follows parts of EU law and accepts freedom of movement.

‘How pathetic it is,’ Hannan continues, for scaredy cats to think ‘Brussels holds all the cards’. Unfortunately for the luckless Hannan, as he was preparing this piece, Professor L. Alan Winters, one of our foremost authorities on international trade, was describing our weak hand to the Commons Trade Committee. We ‘are very, very heavily dependent on the EU market’ and the EU is not anywhere near as dependent on us, he said. In these circumstances, it is easy to see who can play the tough guy at the trade negotiation poker table, and it certainly isn’t Mr Hannan’s Britain.

Not that he can see it. Hannan assures us British exporters who suffer from a complete break from Europe could be compensated from the money raised by tariffs on EU goods. He doesn’t appear to grasp that the WTO restricts subsidies for exporters for reasons which ought to be obvious.

I could go on. But the practical point is one does not simply walk into the WTO any more than one simply walks into Mordor. Indeed, having attempted what Hannan has not, and tried to understand the WTO rules on ‘tariff rate quotas,’ walking into Mordor seems a stroll in comparison.

The psychological point is more telling. Astute readers will have noticed something very strange about Hannan’s piece for us: he is violently defending a policy he does not believe in. Blink and you could miss it, but Hannan says he is a ‘liberal Tory,’ who favours Britain following the Swiss model, not dropping out the single market and customs union entirely. The Swiss example necessitates paying for access to the single market by allowing EU nationals to live and work in the UK, as Switzerland does, and by paying into the EU budget.

Fine. Good. This, too, is a sensible compromise. But Hannan’s liberalism cannot hold. He ought to be arguing against all those on the Right, who want to crash us out of the EU. But he can’t. To use his own language, he’s too much of a wuss to pick a fight with fellow Conservatives. Rather than having the courage to argue against his own side, he goes along with the extremists, just as the centre-left did in the noughties as the far left prepared to take over the Labour party.

The leavers are filled with a dangerous over-confidence. They did not expect to win the referendum. They half expected turmoil to follow when they did. Now in their moment of triumph they have convinced themselves that all the predictions of ‘project fear’ were illusory. This is an arguable point considering that the pound has crashed, the Bank of England has been compelled to cut interest rates to the lowest level, well, ever, and we have not actually left the EU. But arguing relevant points is as much a weakness for Mr Hannan as grasp of detail.

His faction has always been marked by its cockiness and intolerance of criticism. Unfortunately for us, his faction is now driving this country to an unknown destination without knowledge of or thought for the consequences

Ok so growth across 2017 & 2018 has been revised up by 0.05% per annum.

Well better than down but not as good as it could have been with a remain decision.

These are forecasts, not facts.

More project fear there Kimbers.

A high wage economy, with more job security and protection for workers from the damaging effects of globalism is what is on the horizon, it is time for the global elite to pay.

No inconsistencies between what Brexit proponents said before and after the vote.

And no reason for any democratic oversight over the new path we will take, whatever that finally turns out to be.

Huge inconsistencies!

I think that was sarcasm tj!

If Newsnight is to be believed,11:45 tomorrow will be a damp squib

Why are the press making such a thing a big thing of leaving membership of the EU ? NSS

So yet again she is going for a bespoke deal (red, oh forget it….) not one of the other three frameworks but with hidden threat (I guess) of WTO.

As Evan Davies says, there is little new nor little between the main parties given similar (?) views on FoM. Not that Jezza is committing to anything there.

Close the £ short??

Mefty – yes forecasts. Forecasts that another well known Brexy on here was trumpeting as proof that Brexit was ok and project reality was wrong. Go discuss the merits of learned folk making what they know and accept to be judgements with him.

Speaking of which…

jambalaya – Member

@igm yes there has been and will be a short term cost to leaving, my view is the future benefits are much greater.

My view is you are wrong. But you are entitled to your view – just a pity you have to drag the rest of us down with you.
We’ll both be dead before there’s any financial benefit and sovereignty isn’t a benefit when it’s a culturally, socially and financially poorer country.

Finally for tonight, hopefully after tomorrow we’ll see less of a pro-Brexy blinkered view of the world in the press. The standard of reporting in the Telegraph in particular has been shocking – half stories and misleading headlines all over the place.

NOOOOO!they are now interviewing Gove – aaarggghhhhr

Gove did at least say something positive – I am not in government anymore

THM – red white and blue Brexit was a code

@igm I think we’ll be seeing a benefit by 2020

Kimbers this sort of stuff is a hangover from the Campaign. Ludicrous “Remain” scaremongering.

They guarantee paid holidays, and childcare. They forbid discrimination against employees on grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.

We Leave the EU and repeal fhe sex and racial equalities acts ? Really !!

I posted on the Trump thread how he is lighting a fire under the members of Nato that don’t pay their way, Germany barely pays more than half of the target. Chart reprinted below. Fixing that is going to be painful for Europe and further weaken their Brexit negotiating position. Some of these countries are close to the limit of what they can borrow already. Trump is clearly no fan of the EU making even Obama look like a Brussels cheerleader.

Bravo 😉

Joking apart when I discussed RW&B Brexshit with tuttee, it didn’t register as being British at all!

You’ve read the code wrong (perhaps through wishful thinking).
I suggest:
https://goo.gl/images/fhYS6a
Trade with nearby ecomonies restricted thanks to political idolegy.

You keep thinking that Jamba 😉

Finally for tonight, hopefully after tomorrow we’ll see less of a pro-Brexy blinkered view of the world in the press.

Interesting comment. Press has been Remain clickbait central. Tide has come very much the Torygragph’s way.

BTW extra <return> after quote (ie blank line) and /quote to get the text all the same size

Jamba, Trump wants Europe weakened, economically and politically.
The idea that this helps the UK generally, and anyone I know personally, is insulting.

@kimbers on “plebiscites” we should have had simple direct ones like “Should we sign the Maastricht/ Lisbon Treaty” … the Dutch have such a law now. Simple. Of course history shows us Governments do ignore such direct Referendum results. In that case they make the answer to a simple question very complicated.

Kelvin Europe couldn’t be much weaker economically or politically. Trump wants Europe to sort out the bust eurozone and start acting like independent countries instead of the dogs breakfast that is the EU. The EU absolutely provoked Russia over Ukraine.

Press has been Remain clickbait central.

You need to either read more or open your mind more I think. It has been fairly strongly Brexy.

Even the Guardian who self identified as remain has been printing opinion pieces both ways all the way through. Likewise the Indy. Times tried to be balanced. Telegraph was like the Mail on bigger paper. Amongst the tabloids Mail, Express and Sun were lucky not to be in court on incitement charges. Mirror seemed to favour remain but was fairly quite about it.

Anyway you’ve made a liar of me. I need to organise tomorrow’s night ride then get to bed.

P.S. I see no reason why Canada, for example, should aim to spend the same proportion of GDP on “defence” as the USA: it doesn’t seek to use its military for the same aims as the USA, aims that extend way beyond NATO involvement. And I’m particularly glad that some of the less economically successful countries aren’t thowing their sparse funds at equipment made by the USA and other larger, more successful, economies.

P.P.S This has nothing to do with this thread, does it? A bit of a derailment.

IGM I thought you were referring to a Norway model