Brexit.

[omaghjoe]

I kinda laughed at it MR....simple crude nasty humour can be funny too sometimes

[Milltown Row2]

I kinda laughed at it MR....simple crude nasty humour can be funny too sometimes

Yes I'm sure it can, that's the kind of humour that young lads with low self esteem have taken for years before committing suicide... Funny as fcuk

[omaghjoe]

I kinda laughed at it MR....simple crude nasty humour can be funny too sometimes

Yes I'm sure it can, that's the kind of humour that young lads with low self esteem have taken for years before committing suicide... Funny as fcuk

Jaysus steady on.

[seafoid]

Cutbacks loom at RTE as Brexit ad hit pushes losses towards €20m

http://www.independent.ie/business/cutbacks-loom-at-rte-as-brexit-ad-hit-pushes-losses-towards-20m-35038349.html

[seafoid]

The false promise of a free-trade paradise for Brexit Britain

Nick Clegg



May's office must be held to account on its failure to answer awkward questions, writes Nick Clegg


David Davis, flanked by his fellow Brexiters, made his first statement in Parliament this week on Britain's impending EU exit since starting his new job. It was a masterclass in speaking while saying nothing. Questions of substance were dodged by the Brexit secretary under the sensible-sounding pretext that the government wants to "take the time to get it right".

The reality is that time is not on our side. Prime Minister Theresa May has made a commitment to implement Article 50 at the beginning of 2017; from that point on, we only have two years to put everything in place to ensure a smooth transition to the sunny uplands Mr Davis told us awaits.


Brexit will make a deep mark on British life. Most importantly, it will upend our trading relationships with Europe and the rest of the world. Only 15 per cent of UK total trade is with countries that are neither members of the EU, nor covered by an EU trade agreement that is in force or under negotiation.

Brexit ministers have argued that, far from creating risk, leaving the EU will unlock growth by freeing us to sign trade agreements with whomsoever we please. Unlike Michael Gove, the pro-Brexit former justice secretary, I think we need to listen more to experts, not less. In an attempt to ensure someone is holding the government to account, I have been working with experts to find answers to the difficult questions the government is refusing to address.

Since the vote in June, we have been analysing the implications of Brexit for trade, and on Thursday I presented the findings on a platform alongside Peter Sutherland, the former founding director-general of the World Trade Organisation. The conclusions are stark. The idea that we will be signing any new trade deal in the next two years is a pipe dream because of what government officials call "sequencing". We will have to do things in a particular order and it will take time.


15%

Total UK trade with countries that are neither members of the EU, nor covered by an EU trade agreement that is either in force or under negotiation

First, Article 50 has to be triggered, which sets the clock ticking on the exit negotiations. These talks are primarily about how we disentangle ourselves from the EU. Trade discussions will start during this two-year period but they are very unlikely to conclude rapidly because of the number of issues to be resolved. While this is going on Liam Fox, international trade secretary, would like to be lining up new deals with China, India and the US. He can try but, as Australia has made clear , we will not be able to progress beyond informal talks because the UK is not legally able to sign its own agreements until it leaves the EU customs union.

In practice, no one will want to sign deals with us then either. Potential partners will want to see what trading terms we manage to negotiate with the EU before they put forward their own offer. This means waiting until a full UK-EU agreement is negotiated, which is likely to take several more years. The closest model, the EU-Canada trade agreement, was launched in 2007; it has still not been ratified .


The most likely scenario is that the UK leaves the EU without any preferential trade deal in place. We will therefore lose access to more than 50 existing free-trade agreements

A trade agreement with the EU will, in some respects, make doing business with the continent much harder. Exporters in the UK have been promised a red tape-free "Eutopia" but they have been sold a pup. Substituting Britain's current arrangement for a free-trade agreement will create a deluge of paperwork for exporters, who will have to put their products through exhaustive customs checks and comply with complex "rules of origin" to prove where their goods and component parts were manufactured.

Even with a UK-EU agreement in place, there is one further hoop to jump through. The UK will have to establish its own "schedule of commitments" — the tariffs it proposes to levy on imported goods and services — at the WTO before any country will do a deal with us. This requires negotiation with 163 other countries, any one of which could derail the process in the hope of extracting concessions.

Our analysis suggests the most likely scenario is that the UK leaves the EU without any preferential trade deal in place — and without a WTO schedule of commitments. We will therefore lose access to more than 50 existing free-trade agreements. For these reasons we recommend trying to negotiate an interim arrangement, possibly based on the Norwegian model, with continued membership of the single market but the flexibility to pursue our own trading deals.




May tells Tusk UK wants smooth EU divorce

LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 08: British Prime Minister Theresa May (L) greets the President of the European Council Donald Tusk in Downing Street on September 8, 2016 in London, England. This will be the first meeting between the two since Mrs. May became the UK prime minister, with Brexit set to feature on the agenda. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

The primie minister said the UK needs time to prepare for its exit from the EU but was anxious to make it a "smooth process".

So where is the government on all of this? Not even at first base. Mr Davis breezily says it will make a decision whether to leave the customs union before Article 50 is triggered. The Conservatives are stuck between a rock and a hard place: stay in the customs union and Mr Fox's department might as well close its doors. Leave, and British exporters to the EU will be hit by a tangle of red tape.

Ministers must make their plans for Britain's trading relationships clear as soon as possible. We are in the calm before the storm. Whatever form Brexit takes, it is going to be a rough ride.

The writer is the UK's former deputy prime minister


Related Topics

[seafoid]

Clegg's trade paper #Brexit #Clusterfuck

http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/libdems/mailings/4093/attachments/original/International_trade.pdf?ftcamp=crm/email//nbe/BrusselsBrief/product&1473331526=

It is, for example, hard to see how any significant animal and animal product exports to the continent could continue given that imports to the EU have to pass through designated Border Inspection Posts, of which there are precisely none on the other side of the Channel. This is a £1.5bn export trade which would disappear overnight. And the wider £18bn food and drink export industry would be hit by significant tariffs which would inevitably damage sales on the continent. For these reasons, the Treasury estimated the cost to UK economy of the 'WTO option' as 7.5% of GDP after 15 years. The conclusion is that there is no viable 'WTO only' solution

[seafoid]

Clegg's "questions that need to be answered"

1. Is it government policy that the UK will leave the EU Customs Union?
2. Is it the government's intention to seek membership of the Single Market? 7
3. Will the government come clean about the increase in red tape which awaits exporters who want to continue selling their goods into the EU post-Brexit?
4. How will the UK negotiate new WTO schedules of commitments in a reasonable timescale, given that this will require consensus of all WTO members, some of whom are likely to object?
5. How long does the government expect it will take to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement with the EU? Does it believe it can be achieved in the 2-year time frame of the article 50 negotiations?
6. What is the government's plan to prevent a highly damaging hiatus between the end of the article 50 process and the commencement of an EU FTA?
7. What will the government do to protect UK interests against the risk that ratification of the EU FTA is blocked by EU Member States?
8. Will the government confirm its determination to avoid the so-called 'WTO option', given its unworkability and the Treasury's estimate that it would reduce GDP by some 7.5%? $
9. How will the government address the fact that third countries cannot enter into meaningful negotiations with the UK until the UK's future relationship with the EU is clear and its WTO schedule of concessions agreed? What will happen to UK export markets during the hiatus in between?
10.What is the government's estimate of the increase in food prices that would result from applying EU tariff levels to imports from the EU and losing access to preferential food imports under EU agreements with third countries?
11.Does the government intend to pursue an interim agreement which preserves the UK's access to the Single Market while a comprehensive FTA is negotiated?
12.How many external trade negotiators and consultants does the government intend to recruit over the next two years, and at what projected cost?

[heganboy]

If anyone has traveled to the US recently, you will be aware that there is a pay to travel scheme, not a visa per se, but you apply, pay a fee and you are good to go through immigration.

The EU had been working on putting together a similar scheme for no EU citizens for a while. Now it turns out British citizens are likely to do the same

What will that mean on the north south border? And what will that do to the number of Irish  passports in the North?

Here's the Guardian article:

Britons could be forced to pay for permission to travel to the EU after Brexit, the home secretary has admitted, warning that the restrictions are likely to form part of the negotiations over departure.

In her first significant interview since taking over the post in July, Amber Rudd said the possible need to apply for permission to travel under a visa waiver scheme being considered by the European commission was not the preferred option but could not be discounted.

Asked on BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday if UK nationals might be shocked to have to pay for permission to visit France, Rudd replied: "I think they would be surprised. I don't think it's particularly desirable, but we don't rule it out, because we have to be allowed a free hand to get the best negotiations."



She added: "My reaction to that is it's a reminder that this is a two-way negotiation. The EU and the commissioners may be considering issues, alternatives. They will be considering their negotiations with us, just as we are with them. But I'm going to make sure that what we do get is in the best interests of the UK."

On Saturday, the Guardian reported that as part of draft European commission legislation for the EU travel information and authorisation system (Etias), France and Germany both back a system based on the US Esta scheme, which requires visitors from countries that do not require full visas to apply online for permission to travel, preferably 72 hours before they leave, at a cost of $14

As EU citizens, though not from the Schengen free movement area, UK nationals must show a valid passport to enter the zone but can then travel freely within it. But after Brexit, British citizens could have to apply through the Etias scheme and pay to visit, legal experts told the Guardian.


Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary, said Rudd's comments pointed to "yet another example of the drift and confusion as a result of the government's failure to plan for Brexit".

He said: "The home secretary's words will not have reassured ordinary families about the cost of Brexit. She seems to be sympathetic to an idea that will put a flat £50 tax on the average family holiday in Europe. Tory ministers might think nothing of that, but it would make it even harder for ordinary families to afford a holiday.

[armaghniac]

Changes to Schengen visas or ESTA type schemes gave no direct effect in Ireland. The UK might want something similar for Schengen nationalities but the easiest thing to do would be to simply exclude incidental visits to NI from this. But then the logical thing to do is not to leave the EU at all.

[heganboy]

I think the proposed ETIAS scheme is Europe wide. Why not Ireland? Where did you see that?

[seafoid]

Rudd campaigned for Remain. It must be hard for her to have to speak about nonsense as if it is serious

[armaghniac]

Cameron to resign as MP.

I think the proposed ETIAS scheme is Europe wide. Why not Ireland? Where did you see that?

I didn't see it. But logic suggests that it only apply to Schengen, if only because the Irish government would never agree to it. I'm sure Cyprus will remain outside also.

[seafoid]

Cameron to resign as MP.

I think the proposed ETIAS scheme is Europe wide. Why not Ireland? Where did you see that?

I didn't see it. But logic suggests that it only apply to Schengen, if only because the Irish government would never agree to it. I'm sure Cyprus will remain outside also.

Cam had 3 goals as PM

To keep Scotland in the UK
To repair the hole in the country's finances
To keep the UK in the EU

the Brexit vote changed everything

[omaghjoe]

Would say he wants to do a Blairesque liquidation of his contacts and influence without a pesky public office to worry about.

[armaghniac]

Will he do better than Barroso and join Goldman Sachs