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
[b]May's plan for Britain[/b]
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. [b]This is a deliberate attempt to play on European worries about having some kind of Singapore West on its doorstep.[/b]
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 [b]'how to make Brexit work' mode.[/b]
[b]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.[/b] 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. [b]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.[/b] 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 [b]failure of Scottish independence to gain support post-Brexit[/b] - 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
SpectatorThe Brexiteers turn on the plebd
15 January 2017 2:05 PM
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.
[b]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[/b]
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...
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.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.
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 [url= 
]code[/url]
@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.
[img] 
[/img]
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
Jambas why do you describe a region that is only growing slightly slower than the U.K. and in some cases faster as "couldn't be much weaker economically". Your own graph falsifies the idea too.
Kelvin Europe couldn't be much weaker economically or politically.
Fantasy island. The EU is strong, but only if it sticks together.
[img] 
[/img]
Country break down here as well:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
Interesting to compare, say, just Spain, and Russia, when thinking about why some people would want Europe to do badly.
another well known Brexy
I voted remain.
However, I didn't take long to accept the result. I have very little truck with people bleating about lies etc, or it being advisory when a government funded booklet said the result would be abided by.
So, having accepted the result, my view is the government's rumored approach is the right one. THM wants to try and retain as much we have. I think this is pessimistic, there is no point in hard wiring a worse position than we have now, we should select a path that allows us to try and benefit from leaving. Whether we manage to do this is up to us.
[img] 
[/img]
just popped up on twitter feed,
Thank you brexiters!
Think about this one thing, would you manufacturer any sub component that had to pass through multiple customs check with all the associated costs, or would you just walk away?
Good to see Peston's ego is in tact, "I have learned", there is an embargoed release to the press tonight of the main themes of the speech - the full details are on [url= https://order-order.com/2017/01/16/may-speech-pre-briefed-quotes/ ]Guido Fawkes[/url]
However, I didn't take long to accept the result. I have very little truck with people bleating about lies etc, or it being advisory when a government funded booklet said the result would be abided by.
Er, the Tories who were in government at the time lied, and used government machinery to do so?
The referendum terms were voted on by parliament, the spin in that booklet does not change the law, or remove the responsibility from parliament to consider the actual result, and closeness of, the advisory referendum, and consider what the best way to progress should be.
I think this is pessimistic, there is no point in hard wiring a worse position than we have now, we should select a path that allows us to try and benefit from leaving. Whether we manage to do this is up to us.
Sorry, mate, it isn't up to you. It isn't up to us. There will be no chance for you, us, or I to select a path. It is up to our MPs, unless they choose to give us a vote and a say. It also isn't just up to May and her inner circle, which is why we need MPs to get a grip, and, er, get a grip on the path we will take.
Sterling's going to take another hammering tomorrow.
I voted remain.However, I didn't take long to accept the result. I have very little truck with people bleating about lies etc, or it being advisory when a government funded booklet said the result would be abided by.
Agreed so far
So, having accepted the result, my view is the government's rumored approach is the right one. THM wants to try and retain as much we have. I think this is pessimistic, there is no point in hard wiring a worse position than we have now, we should select a path that allows us to try and benefit from leaving. Whether we manage to do this is up to us.
Not quite true. We cannot retain what we had. My point there was that Dave/Sir Ivan negotiated a deal that was better than anything we will achieve. But that is history. No point crying over spilled milk.
Where I differ from the government is simple - I am in favour of FoM, so for me the EEA option is plausible. This is not the case with Therasa May. If I am being polite here, I would suggest that she is mistaken but the reality is that I am disgusted by the xenophobia that is behind that idea and the false analysis that tries to pretend that immigration is/was/will be a bad thing. I think that this is truly shameful and have no truck with it.
Of course, the remaining options lie along the spectrum of liberalised trade versus sovereignty. I favour the former so for me the WTO option is the worst of the other three.
However, all said and done, I believe that there will be a compromise. Both sides (nutters aside) know that we are facing a lose:lose scenario and therefore behind the scenes the hard work will be well advanced coming up with a compromise. Theresa will most likely get her bespoke deal as Carolyn Flint conceded today.
So in actual fact I think we agree. Hence I wanted to get on with things and get the compromise delivered ASAP.
Kelvin, the government's line was clear but not the one that you suggest. We have linked to their documents earlier.
Er, the Tories who were in government at the time lied, and used government machinery to do so?
They wont have lied if they abide by the result. If you are relying on MPs to mount a rear guard action, I am afraid you are going to be disappointed.
There will be no chance for you, us, or I to select a path. It is up to our MPs, unless they choose to give us a vote and a say.
I wasn't suggesting there was, I was saying it is up to us to try and benefit form the new situation.
@kelvin, the US spends 3.7% GDP (and US GDP is a big number !). The NATO commitment is 2%, pay up or leave seems a resonable stance imho.
@tmh EU is starting to look like Greece, numbers are based upon a falsehood. Greek "bailout" loans are worth 50 cents on the dollar. Hollande is gone, Merkel is teetering and lurching rightwards in an attempt to fend off AfD. There is no real leadership.
Here are some quotes from Theresa's speech tomorrow, as usual these days sent to the press in advance
"A little over six months ago the British people voted for change," she will say.
"They voted to shape a brighter future for our country. They voted to leave the European Union and embrace the world.
"And they did so with their eyes open: accepting that the road ahead will be uncertain at time, but believing that it leads towards a brighter future for their children - and their grandchildren too.
"And it is the job of this Government to deliver it. That means more than negotiating our new relationship with the EU. It means taking the opportunity of this great moment of national change to step back and ask ourselves what kind of country we want to be.
Kelvin, the government's line was clear but not the one that you suggest. We have linked to their documents earlier.
MP's voted on a bill for an advisory referendum that did not abdicate their responsibility.
Go and read the bill.
What the "government" of the time said in its expensive propaganda piece (that I ranted about at the time it was produced) is irrelevant, just like any other Tory puff piece that comes through the door. What parliament enacts is what matters.
They wont have lied if they abide by the result. If you are relying on MPs to mount a rear guard action, I am afraid you are going to be disappointed.
I want MPs to do their jobs.
I wasn't suggesting there was, I was saying it is up to us to try and benefit form the new situation.
Lots of people will benefit form the new situation. Which people though?
And who will lose out? I'd hate to be in UK manufacturing right now.
ask ourselves what kind of country we want to be
Ask ourselves? How about asking the people of the UK? Vote time…
Go and read the government's literature - the official line was to remain.
You can't equate Brexshit with the Tories
I'd hate to be in UK manufacturing right now.
In my circle of acquaintances the divide isn't between manufacturers and service providers, it is between people who runs their own businesses and people who work for big corporates. The former are much more optimistic than the latter, however I think this has more to do with the type of personality who thrive in the different environments.
the official line was to remain
You think I don't now that?
The government tried to present an advisory referendum as a binding one, it was not, they tried this slight of hand to help their party unite after the vote, not matter what the outcome. The referendum bill was advisory, that is what parliament voted for, and it should now fulfil its role and consider the result, and how that should shape our future.
From your earlier comments, it is a matter of doubt
Edit. I may have misread your comment. When you said Tories who were in government at the time I thought you were referring to the whole flange. You may have been referring to the Brexshiteers alone. If so I misunderstood, sorry !!
Because I said the government lied?
X post. Hope that's cleared up!
Nope, the Remain backing Tories at the head of government lied.
That document, that the state paid for, that was a blatant Remain propaganda piece, was full of deceit.
The one particular deceit I was taking about here was suggesting that the referendum was binding.
Why on earth would you think that only Leave backing Tories (other political parties are available) were less than completely honest?
