Flags are against the rules we heard
Strangely, previously MEPs wearing clothing with the slogan Bollocks To Brexit was deemed acceptable - Double standards?
Perish the thought - fuck 'em
Another new Brexit thread
- Thread starter Ric
- Start date
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Strangely, previously MEPs wearing clothing with the slogan Bollocks To Brexit was deemed acceptable - Double standards?
Perish the thought - fuck 'em
Yeah, Napoleon tweeted regularly about brexit.
Name a democracy where the parliament cannot propose legislation. This is not an accident, it is to ensure that the Commission has the power. As for parliament asking the Commission to bring forward legislation, the Commission can just refuse. If the commission was doing something nutty, opposed by the majority of MEPs, there would be nothing the parliament could do.
BobKowalski
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 17 May 2007
- Messages
- 21,511
Some further insight into Barnier/EU thinking from Nick Gutteridge (Sun). Highlights as follows
‘...shows how the EU is going to approach the negotiations and what its priorities will be. An Association Agreement means the entire relationship will be encompassed by one governance structure and set of Level Playing Field conditions. This precludes the idea of a Swiss-style relationship, in which the UK and EU could've struck a quick FTA on goods during the transition period with its own distinct provisions in these areas, and then separately approached sectors like security, transport etc afterwards.
Ordinarily the Commission doesn't propose a legal basis for an agreement with a 3rd country until it's clear where it's going in terms of the scope of the relationship. The fact the EU is moving early here shows both its level of preparedness and concern about these talks. It has the effect of thrusting the 'architecture' of the relationship to the forefront. The EU wants to build a big house which may be sparsely furnished at first, with perhaps just a goods agreement, but which over time can be added to with 'state of the art' sectoral deals.
From the EU perspective getting the structure sorted early provides a solid foundation of trust on which to build a close relationship. It prevents lots of parallel sector-by-sector negotiations and give solid guarantees about how dispute settlement will work across the board. But the UK may be wary of an Association Agreement. It requires Britain to sign up to governance measures - including possible ECJ involvement - and a Level Playing Field right at the start. Some pretty important things will have to be agreed long before everything is agreed.
The negotiations themselves will be structured in a 3-week rolling cycle - preparation week, talks week, debrief week, reset. As the Dec 31 deadline looms this may become compressed, but the structure will remain intact. It's similar to the structure of the Withdrawal talks. The Commission is proposing an ambitious approach to getting as much done as possible with 12 separate strands - covering areas like goods, services, security, defence, fisheries etc - set to be tackled in parallel, albeit with a more intense focus on the key areas for now.’
‘...shows how the EU is going to approach the negotiations and what its priorities will be. An Association Agreement means the entire relationship will be encompassed by one governance structure and set of Level Playing Field conditions. This precludes the idea of a Swiss-style relationship, in which the UK and EU could've struck a quick FTA on goods during the transition period with its own distinct provisions in these areas, and then separately approached sectors like security, transport etc afterwards.
Ordinarily the Commission doesn't propose a legal basis for an agreement with a 3rd country until it's clear where it's going in terms of the scope of the relationship. The fact the EU is moving early here shows both its level of preparedness and concern about these talks. It has the effect of thrusting the 'architecture' of the relationship to the forefront. The EU wants to build a big house which may be sparsely furnished at first, with perhaps just a goods agreement, but which over time can be added to with 'state of the art' sectoral deals.
From the EU perspective getting the structure sorted early provides a solid foundation of trust on which to build a close relationship. It prevents lots of parallel sector-by-sector negotiations and give solid guarantees about how dispute settlement will work across the board. But the UK may be wary of an Association Agreement. It requires Britain to sign up to governance measures - including possible ECJ involvement - and a Level Playing Field right at the start. Some pretty important things will have to be agreed long before everything is agreed.
The negotiations themselves will be structured in a 3-week rolling cycle - preparation week, talks week, debrief week, reset. As the Dec 31 deadline looms this may become compressed, but the structure will remain intact. It's similar to the structure of the Withdrawal talks. The Commission is proposing an ambitious approach to getting as much done as possible with 12 separate strands - covering areas like goods, services, security, defence, fisheries etc - set to be tackled in parallel, albeit with a more intense focus on the key areas for now.’
mancity2012_eamo
Well-Known Member
Sounds like the USA.
aguerrrroooooooooooo
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- Joined
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- 11,040
Informative post, cheers
George Hannah
Well-Known Member
Another lament - this from the Torygraph
Leaving the EU is horrible, but it is the only way to preserve our democratic liberal nation state
Sadness, foreboding, and dismay that it ever came to such a point: these are the emotions that this reluctant Brexiteer feels as we finally leave the European Union on Friday. I feel no satisfaction in the traumatic moment. Yet I stick to my view that this dysfunctional marriage had to end. Such is the Brexit paradox.
There has been much commentary over recent days dividing us (again) into opposed camps: Remainers still angry or in mourning, set against triumphant foes of Brussels. But what about the rest of us with more subtle feelings and in many cases a deep affection for l’Europe des patries?
Of course we recognise the advantages (for some) of being able to live and work anywhere in the EU. We know Brussels did a good job breaking down the cartels, opening up cheap air travel and (belatedly) ending the racket of roaming fees.
We can see that if you are dealing with a Chinese Communist Party that sees itself in “existential struggle” with the West, or with a pathological predator like Vladimir Putin, it is better to club together in self-protection. Mark these down on the good side of the ledger. But they are not the heart of the matter.
It has been a particularly irritating habit of the British establishment, aligned with a nexus of vested interests, and their army of academic and media auxiliaries, to reduce Brexit to a matter of trade above all else. If that were the case, then one would wish to stay in the EU.
But Brexit is not about trade, and nor are the details of customs clearance or rules of origin as important as we keep being told. They are not trivial but they are second order issues.
The elemental question is who runs this country. Do we wish to be a self-governing democracy under our own courts, or a canton of a higher supra-national regime that keeps acquiring more powers – beyond its ability to exercise them competently – through the Monnet Method of treaty creep?
There is no mechanism for removing this overweening hybrid executive in Brussels, even when it persists in error as did in nearly accomplishing the extinction of North Sea cod by sheer ecological vandalism, or when it forced half of Europe into a debt-deflation spiral from 2010 to 2015 based on economic doctrines discredited a century ago.
How do you dislodge the European Council from the Justus Lipsius when it behaves outrageously? Can you impeach it? No, you can’t.
Commission fonctionnaires may be urbane, talented, and hard-working, but they are not a civil service. They can launch dawn police raids. They can impose vast fines on their own authority. They have quasi-judicial powers and the prerogative of legislative initiative. They are more like the Roman Curia. Nothing like this has existed in British political life since the Reformation. How do voters hold this Caesaropapist structure to account? They cannot do so. That is what Brexit is about.
There are great numbers of us in Britain, France, Holland, the Nordics, or the Czech Republic, who think the precious liberal nation state – inspired by the redemptive values of the English Bill of Rights and the Déclaration des droits de l'homme – has been a resounding success. We think it is the only forum of authentic democracy, the agent of the greatest moral progress the world has ever seen. We think the systematic attempt to discredit the nation state by blaming it for two world wars is an historical sleight of hand, a lie fed to two generations of European school children though the co-ordinated Franco-German curriculum in a systematic brain-washing exercise.
We see it as the guarantor of social solidarity and a bulwark against religious agitation, fracture, and the unforgiving clash of communitarian identities. We think it should not be discarded lightly.
Prof Gil Delannoi from Science Po in Paris argues in La Nation contre le Nationalisme that the EU is acquiring the character of an empire, a softish variant akin to the Holy Roman Empire, but – he notes acidly – soft empires remain soft only until they meet resistance.
The ousted Greek and Italian prime ministers discovered this during the eurozone crisis. When the euro’s survival was a stake, the imperial reflex was to replace these mercurial leaders with reliable EU apparatchiks – nice gentlemen, to be sure, but usurpers shoehorned into office with the connivance of captured local elites.
The implacable difficulty is that no empire has ever been democratic, even if the imperial mother country can itself be democratic in internal matters. So what do you do if you think that the EU is in fundamental and dangerous constitutional conflict with your nation state, sapping the lifeblood out of your institutions?
The chaos in Parliament over the last three years does not validate claims that Britain's quirky form of national democracy has long passed its sell-by date. The Bercow nadir illustrates a different point: degradation is what happens when legislatures have been eviscerated and the political class has been infantilised by yielding its functions to a higher authority. You end up with a playground.
What do you do? You vote for Brexit, or Frexit, or whatever your cause may be called – if they let you – knowing that it is going to be a painful ordeal, and hating the fact that you are at odds with the European nations you admire.
We are told that the EU has learned its limits and has stopped accreting power. Another Conference on the Future of Europe is planned: a two-year vox pop foray to rebuild trust and show EU citizens that their voice counts.
Forgive me for wincing. I was the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent when Europe’s leaders – chastened by the torching of Gothenburg – published the Laeken Declaration in 2001. This mea culpa confessed that Europe’s peoples had come to see the EU as "a threat to their identity" and that there was no appetite for "a European superstate or European institutions inveigling their way into every nook and cranny of life."
It spoke of returning powers to the member states and restoring "democratic legitimacy" through a Philadelphia convention. What happened? EU insiders hijacked it. A praesidium under super-elitist Valéry Giscard d'Estaing picked Commission lawyers to draft the wording.
The final text called for an EU president, a justice department, a supreme court with jurisdiction over all areas of EU policy for the first time, and for scrapping the national veto across further swaths of policy. It became the Lisbon Treaty, pushed through by executive nod without a referendum, except in Ireland where voters promptly rejected it – to no avail obviously.
Sure enough, the insiders are already subverting this new attempt. The European Parliament – a self-promoting corporation as much as a legislature – has picked the arch-integrationist Guy Verhofstadt to lead the charge and is already talking of stripping states of their tax and foreign policy vetoes.
The European Parliament's Guy Verhofstadt CREDIT: AFP
Nor can the EU retreat as long as the euro exists. The logic of monetary union is fiscal union, and that path leads to a unitary superstate. The euro cannot be made to work successfully any other way, as the German professoriate warned a quarter century ago.
Either the eurozone moves towards an EU treasury with shared debts, fiscal transfers, and federal tax powers, or it will stumble from crisis to crisis with each cyclical downturn until it blows apart. But to assume those powers is to strip the Bundestag and its peers of their core tax and spending prerogatives, without which democracy is a sham.
It is why the alluring cakeism of the City of London – in the EU but not in the euro – could never be a stable equilibrium and could not last. The notion that we could have it "both ways" and cling forever to a frozen status quo has been the great illusion of City Remainers. The EU is reorganising its constitutional structure around the viability of the euro and there is no place in this scheme for a sterling hold-out. We had to join them totally, or leave them.
My fond hope is that by saving our democratic nation state from slow asphyxiation we will head off a drift into anomie and dangerous political waters. The dust will settle and the world will wake up to find the same tolerant free-thinking UK, under the rule of law, that it has mostly been for 300 years, and wonder how it misread Brexit so badly.
It is Europe that the liberal intelligentsia should worry about. The EU has choked off the political breathing space of its members. It risks succumbing gradually to the Salvinis, the Orbans, and the neo-Falangist syndicalism of the AfD and the Rassemblement, as voters rebel against globalist cultural nihilism.
A liberal-minded Briton does not have to apologise for Brexit and the restoration of democratic self-rule, but that does not make it a pleasant exercise. The sadness is that Europe’s hard-driving ideological elites have led us to this regrettable juncture.
I will drink my toast on Friday to fellow souverainistes across the Channel. Join us soon.
Leaving the EU is horrible, but it is the only way to preserve our democratic liberal nation state
There has been much commentary over recent days dividing us (again) into opposed camps: Remainers still angry or in mourning, set against triumphant foes of Brussels. But what about the rest of us with more subtle feelings and in many cases a deep affection for l’Europe des patries?
Of course we recognise the advantages (for some) of being able to live and work anywhere in the EU. We know Brussels did a good job breaking down the cartels, opening up cheap air travel and (belatedly) ending the racket of roaming fees.
We can see that if you are dealing with a Chinese Communist Party that sees itself in “existential struggle” with the West, or with a pathological predator like Vladimir Putin, it is better to club together in self-protection. Mark these down on the good side of the ledger. But they are not the heart of the matter.
It has been a particularly irritating habit of the British establishment, aligned with a nexus of vested interests, and their army of academic and media auxiliaries, to reduce Brexit to a matter of trade above all else. If that were the case, then one would wish to stay in the EU.
But Brexit is not about trade, and nor are the details of customs clearance or rules of origin as important as we keep being told. They are not trivial but they are second order issues.
The elemental question is who runs this country. Do we wish to be a self-governing democracy under our own courts, or a canton of a higher supra-national regime that keeps acquiring more powers – beyond its ability to exercise them competently – through the Monnet Method of treaty creep?
There is no mechanism for removing this overweening hybrid executive in Brussels, even when it persists in error as did in nearly accomplishing the extinction of North Sea cod by sheer ecological vandalism, or when it forced half of Europe into a debt-deflation spiral from 2010 to 2015 based on economic doctrines discredited a century ago.
How do you dislodge the European Council from the Justus Lipsius when it behaves outrageously? Can you impeach it? No, you can’t.
Commission fonctionnaires may be urbane, talented, and hard-working, but they are not a civil service. They can launch dawn police raids. They can impose vast fines on their own authority. They have quasi-judicial powers and the prerogative of legislative initiative. They are more like the Roman Curia. Nothing like this has existed in British political life since the Reformation. How do voters hold this Caesaropapist structure to account? They cannot do so. That is what Brexit is about.
There are great numbers of us in Britain, France, Holland, the Nordics, or the Czech Republic, who think the precious liberal nation state – inspired by the redemptive values of the English Bill of Rights and the Déclaration des droits de l'homme – has been a resounding success. We think it is the only forum of authentic democracy, the agent of the greatest moral progress the world has ever seen. We think the systematic attempt to discredit the nation state by blaming it for two world wars is an historical sleight of hand, a lie fed to two generations of European school children though the co-ordinated Franco-German curriculum in a systematic brain-washing exercise.
We see it as the guarantor of social solidarity and a bulwark against religious agitation, fracture, and the unforgiving clash of communitarian identities. We think it should not be discarded lightly.
Prof Gil Delannoi from Science Po in Paris argues in La Nation contre le Nationalisme that the EU is acquiring the character of an empire, a softish variant akin to the Holy Roman Empire, but – he notes acidly – soft empires remain soft only until they meet resistance.
The ousted Greek and Italian prime ministers discovered this during the eurozone crisis. When the euro’s survival was a stake, the imperial reflex was to replace these mercurial leaders with reliable EU apparatchiks – nice gentlemen, to be sure, but usurpers shoehorned into office with the connivance of captured local elites.
The implacable difficulty is that no empire has ever been democratic, even if the imperial mother country can itself be democratic in internal matters. So what do you do if you think that the EU is in fundamental and dangerous constitutional conflict with your nation state, sapping the lifeblood out of your institutions?
The chaos in Parliament over the last three years does not validate claims that Britain's quirky form of national democracy has long passed its sell-by date. The Bercow nadir illustrates a different point: degradation is what happens when legislatures have been eviscerated and the political class has been infantilised by yielding its functions to a higher authority. You end up with a playground.
What do you do? You vote for Brexit, or Frexit, or whatever your cause may be called – if they let you – knowing that it is going to be a painful ordeal, and hating the fact that you are at odds with the European nations you admire.
We are told that the EU has learned its limits and has stopped accreting power. Another Conference on the Future of Europe is planned: a two-year vox pop foray to rebuild trust and show EU citizens that their voice counts.
Forgive me for wincing. I was the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent when Europe’s leaders – chastened by the torching of Gothenburg – published the Laeken Declaration in 2001. This mea culpa confessed that Europe’s peoples had come to see the EU as "a threat to their identity" and that there was no appetite for "a European superstate or European institutions inveigling their way into every nook and cranny of life."
It spoke of returning powers to the member states and restoring "democratic legitimacy" through a Philadelphia convention. What happened? EU insiders hijacked it. A praesidium under super-elitist Valéry Giscard d'Estaing picked Commission lawyers to draft the wording.
The final text called for an EU president, a justice department, a supreme court with jurisdiction over all areas of EU policy for the first time, and for scrapping the national veto across further swaths of policy. It became the Lisbon Treaty, pushed through by executive nod without a referendum, except in Ireland where voters promptly rejected it – to no avail obviously.
Sure enough, the insiders are already subverting this new attempt. The European Parliament – a self-promoting corporation as much as a legislature – has picked the arch-integrationist Guy Verhofstadt to lead the charge and is already talking of stripping states of their tax and foreign policy vetoes.
The European Parliament's Guy Verhofstadt CREDIT: AFP
Nor can the EU retreat as long as the euro exists. The logic of monetary union is fiscal union, and that path leads to a unitary superstate. The euro cannot be made to work successfully any other way, as the German professoriate warned a quarter century ago.
Either the eurozone moves towards an EU treasury with shared debts, fiscal transfers, and federal tax powers, or it will stumble from crisis to crisis with each cyclical downturn until it blows apart. But to assume those powers is to strip the Bundestag and its peers of their core tax and spending prerogatives, without which democracy is a sham.
It is why the alluring cakeism of the City of London – in the EU but not in the euro – could never be a stable equilibrium and could not last. The notion that we could have it "both ways" and cling forever to a frozen status quo has been the great illusion of City Remainers. The EU is reorganising its constitutional structure around the viability of the euro and there is no place in this scheme for a sterling hold-out. We had to join them totally, or leave them.
My fond hope is that by saving our democratic nation state from slow asphyxiation we will head off a drift into anomie and dangerous political waters. The dust will settle and the world will wake up to find the same tolerant free-thinking UK, under the rule of law, that it has mostly been for 300 years, and wonder how it misread Brexit so badly.
It is Europe that the liberal intelligentsia should worry about. The EU has choked off the political breathing space of its members. It risks succumbing gradually to the Salvinis, the Orbans, and the neo-Falangist syndicalism of the AfD and the Rassemblement, as voters rebel against globalist cultural nihilism.
A liberal-minded Briton does not have to apologise for Brexit and the restoration of democratic self-rule, but that does not make it a pleasant exercise. The sadness is that Europe’s hard-driving ideological elites have led us to this regrettable juncture.
I will drink my toast on Friday to fellow souverainistes across the Channel. Join us soon.
George Hannah
Well-Known Member
and while my unexpected free pass into the empire of the Barclay Bros is still valid
How the doomongers got it wrong about Britain's Brexit economy
The economy is showing positive signs. Now it's time to roll up our sleeves and show that post-Brexit Britain can shine
Liam Halligan
30 JANUARY 2020 • 1:31PM
“The country’s finished,” snapped Hugh Grant last week, when asked about developments in the UK since mid-December. While an accomplished actor, when it comes to political and economic analysis the Notting Hill star fluffed his lines. For whether Grant likes it or not, Boris Johnson’s emphatic election victory has sparked a burst of business optimism. Clarity on Brexit triggered a strong economic uptick in January, after three and a half years of political deadlock.
Just look at this chart:
Brexit is getting done - and businesses confidence is booming
Line chart with 37 data points.
The chart has 1 X axis displaying Time. Range: 2017-01-20 01:12:00 to 2020-02-10 22:48:00.
The chart has 1 Y axis displaying Above 50 indicates growth. Range: 47.5 to 57.5.
View as data table. Brexit is getting done - and businesses confidence is booming
Above 50 indicates growthBrexit is getting done - and businessesconfidence is boomingComposite PMIJul '17Jan '18Jul '18Jan '19Jul '19Jan '2047.55052.55557.5IHS MARKIT
End of interactive chart.
It shows the economy just recorded its best month in over a year. Confidence among manufacturers saw its sharpest rise on record.
Firms also took on more staff, with permanent hiring up in January for the first time since 2018. Ending the Brexit stand-off also inspired consumer confidence, as house purchases and car sales picked up.
This “Boris Bounce” was confirmed by the International Monetary Fund, which has just upgraded its 2020 UK growth estimate, despite lowering forecasts elsewhere. Britain is set to expand 1.4 per cent this year – faster than France, Germany and the eurozone as a whole - and exports are set to outstrip the rest of Europe as new trade opportunities present themselves:
Brexit bounce
Bar chart with 9 bars.
British exports are expected to outperform the rest of Europe in terms of growth this year
The chart has 1 X axis displaying categories.
The chart has 1 Y axis displaying Expected growth in exports ($bn). Range: 0 to 100.
View as data table. Brexit bounce
Expected growth in exports($bn)Brexit bounceBritish exports are expected to outperform the restof Europe in terms of growth this yearChinaUSCanadaUKNetherlandsGermanyBelgiumFranceSpain050100EULER HERMES
End of interactive chart.
With the UK high up the G7 growth league, and Brexit uncertainty tamed, chief executives across the world are channelling a wave of cash towards Britain, seen as an increasingly stable investment destination in a world best by political and economic turmoil.
The government, after ten years of tight spending, is also loosening the public purse strings. The budget deficit is down from a ruinous 10 per cent of GDP after the 2008 financial crisis to under 2 per cent now. That’s why Chancellor Sajid Javid unveiled an extra £14 billion in public spending in September, the largest rise in 15 years.
With tax revenues recently buoyant and borrowing lower than expected, there’s more to come in next month’s budget – which will unleash further public investment.
The government now needs to lay out its post-Brexit policy agenda – as Westminster regains control of Britain’s laws, borders and money. Freed from EU “structural fund” restrictions, an active regional policy can close the productivity gap between the South East and elsewhere. That means far more widespread infrastructure spending – in my view, diverting funds earmarked for HS2 towards regional commuter services.
A dozen low-tax “free ports” – stymied under EU rules – would similarly help spread wealth across the regions. So too would strong post-Brexit agricultural and fishery policies, shifting subsidies towards smaller farmers while reclaiming UK fishing grounds. Our sovereign industrial policy should avoid “picking winners”, but be based instead on low, simple taxation – slashing business rates to help struggling high street retailers, amidst other carefully targeted tax breaks.
As well as world-class transport and broadband connectivity, we also need, despite incoming migration controls, a steady supply of labour – which means better skills. Securing a high-wage, high-productivity economy requires vocational training to be at the heart of the UK post-Brexit policy mix, with its own dedicated Cabinet position. There need not be an erosion of workers’ rights and a regulatory race to the bottom and, despite scaremongering, I don’t believe there will be – not least as our own Parliament will be in charge, with the Tories keen to retain support in newly-won seats in former Labour heartlands seats.
Although Brexit has now legally happened, we need more certainty regarding our ongoing EU relationship, of course. In the upcoming trade talks, before the no-change “implementation period” ends in December, the UK is once again well placed.
While negotiating with a hapless Theresa May, the Brussels-based eurocrats still had a chance of reversing Brexit, so were allowed to dictate the EU’s strategy. But with Johnson controlling the Commons and Brexit “done”, EU governments know this is now all about damage limitation – and will be more heavily involved.
Leaders of EU member states and their business lobbies know Britain’s £94 billion EU trade deficit translates into billions of euros of profit and millions of EU jobs. We need to wake up to our strengths, dismissing eurocrat attempts at “sequencing” from the outset. All issues should be addressed simultaneously, including Britain’s on-going defence, security and intelligence commitment, which in the EU’s eyes is priceless.
Far too much is still being made of the EU’s “formidable bargaining power”. Really? Emmanuel Macron is besieged by protesters and lagging hard-right Marine Le Pen in opinion polls. Angela Merkel is bowing out of public life as Germany’s economy stagnates, her ruling coalition in tatters.
We want our European neighbours to prosper, of course, but let’s not be intimidated. The UK was judged “the best place in the world to do business” by Forbes Magazine for the last two years in a row. We boast seven of the top 40 universities on earth – the EU has none.
“There goes the neighbourhood,” tweeted Hugh Grant on election night, as Johnson secured his majority, embodying the patronising, anti-democratic attitudes of a cosseted liberal elite. The rest of the country, meanwhile, wants to roll up its sleeves and show that post-Brexit Britain can shine.
How the doomongers got it wrong about Britain's Brexit economy
The economy is showing positive signs. Now it's time to roll up our sleeves and show that post-Brexit Britain can shine
Liam Halligan
30 JANUARY 2020 • 1:31PM
“The country’s finished,” snapped Hugh Grant last week, when asked about developments in the UK since mid-December. While an accomplished actor, when it comes to political and economic analysis the Notting Hill star fluffed his lines. For whether Grant likes it or not, Boris Johnson’s emphatic election victory has sparked a burst of business optimism. Clarity on Brexit triggered a strong economic uptick in January, after three and a half years of political deadlock.
Just look at this chart:
Brexit is getting done - and businesses confidence is booming
Line chart with 37 data points.
The chart has 1 X axis displaying Time. Range: 2017-01-20 01:12:00 to 2020-02-10 22:48:00.
The chart has 1 Y axis displaying Above 50 indicates growth. Range: 47.5 to 57.5.
View as data table. Brexit is getting done - and businesses confidence is booming
Above 50 indicates growthBrexit is getting done - and businessesconfidence is boomingComposite PMIJul '17Jan '18Jul '18Jan '19Jul '19Jan '2047.55052.55557.5IHS MARKIT
End of interactive chart.
It shows the economy just recorded its best month in over a year. Confidence among manufacturers saw its sharpest rise on record.
Firms also took on more staff, with permanent hiring up in January for the first time since 2018. Ending the Brexit stand-off also inspired consumer confidence, as house purchases and car sales picked up.
This “Boris Bounce” was confirmed by the International Monetary Fund, which has just upgraded its 2020 UK growth estimate, despite lowering forecasts elsewhere. Britain is set to expand 1.4 per cent this year – faster than France, Germany and the eurozone as a whole - and exports are set to outstrip the rest of Europe as new trade opportunities present themselves:
Brexit bounce
Bar chart with 9 bars.
British exports are expected to outperform the rest of Europe in terms of growth this year
The chart has 1 X axis displaying categories.
The chart has 1 Y axis displaying Expected growth in exports ($bn). Range: 0 to 100.
View as data table. Brexit bounce
Expected growth in exports($bn)Brexit bounceBritish exports are expected to outperform the restof Europe in terms of growth this yearChinaUSCanadaUKNetherlandsGermanyBelgiumFranceSpain050100EULER HERMES
End of interactive chart.
With the UK high up the G7 growth league, and Brexit uncertainty tamed, chief executives across the world are channelling a wave of cash towards Britain, seen as an increasingly stable investment destination in a world best by political and economic turmoil.
The government, after ten years of tight spending, is also loosening the public purse strings. The budget deficit is down from a ruinous 10 per cent of GDP after the 2008 financial crisis to under 2 per cent now. That’s why Chancellor Sajid Javid unveiled an extra £14 billion in public spending in September, the largest rise in 15 years.
With tax revenues recently buoyant and borrowing lower than expected, there’s more to come in next month’s budget – which will unleash further public investment.
The government now needs to lay out its post-Brexit policy agenda – as Westminster regains control of Britain’s laws, borders and money. Freed from EU “structural fund” restrictions, an active regional policy can close the productivity gap between the South East and elsewhere. That means far more widespread infrastructure spending – in my view, diverting funds earmarked for HS2 towards regional commuter services.
A dozen low-tax “free ports” – stymied under EU rules – would similarly help spread wealth across the regions. So too would strong post-Brexit agricultural and fishery policies, shifting subsidies towards smaller farmers while reclaiming UK fishing grounds. Our sovereign industrial policy should avoid “picking winners”, but be based instead on low, simple taxation – slashing business rates to help struggling high street retailers, amidst other carefully targeted tax breaks.
As well as world-class transport and broadband connectivity, we also need, despite incoming migration controls, a steady supply of labour – which means better skills. Securing a high-wage, high-productivity economy requires vocational training to be at the heart of the UK post-Brexit policy mix, with its own dedicated Cabinet position. There need not be an erosion of workers’ rights and a regulatory race to the bottom and, despite scaremongering, I don’t believe there will be – not least as our own Parliament will be in charge, with the Tories keen to retain support in newly-won seats in former Labour heartlands seats.
Although Brexit has now legally happened, we need more certainty regarding our ongoing EU relationship, of course. In the upcoming trade talks, before the no-change “implementation period” ends in December, the UK is once again well placed.
While negotiating with a hapless Theresa May, the Brussels-based eurocrats still had a chance of reversing Brexit, so were allowed to dictate the EU’s strategy. But with Johnson controlling the Commons and Brexit “done”, EU governments know this is now all about damage limitation – and will be more heavily involved.
Leaders of EU member states and their business lobbies know Britain’s £94 billion EU trade deficit translates into billions of euros of profit and millions of EU jobs. We need to wake up to our strengths, dismissing eurocrat attempts at “sequencing” from the outset. All issues should be addressed simultaneously, including Britain’s on-going defence, security and intelligence commitment, which in the EU’s eyes is priceless.
Far too much is still being made of the EU’s “formidable bargaining power”. Really? Emmanuel Macron is besieged by protesters and lagging hard-right Marine Le Pen in opinion polls. Angela Merkel is bowing out of public life as Germany’s economy stagnates, her ruling coalition in tatters.
We want our European neighbours to prosper, of course, but let’s not be intimidated. The UK was judged “the best place in the world to do business” by Forbes Magazine for the last two years in a row. We boast seven of the top 40 universities on earth – the EU has none.
“There goes the neighbourhood,” tweeted Hugh Grant on election night, as Johnson secured his majority, embodying the patronising, anti-democratic attitudes of a cosseted liberal elite. The rest of the country, meanwhile, wants to roll up its sleeves and show that post-Brexit Britain can shine.
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aguerrrroooooooooooo
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 16 Feb 2016
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- 11,040
Lmao what
https://thebestschools.org/rankings/best-universities-world-today/#stanford
I count 7 for EU members as well here
Chippy_boy
Well-Known Member
Look, I am not defending the EU and there's much that's wrong with it. I was very mixed about whether we should stay in or leave.
But the above is a combination of IMO a rather biased perspective and also misunderstanding.
Yes, the EU Commission is responsible for bringing forward legislation. But how different is that from the situation in the UK where the government is responsible for bringing forward virtually all legislation? Sure our government is elected, but is it limited to only legislating on things in its manifesto? No. Is it obligated to bring forward legislation for things that were in the manifesto? No. All it has to do is get elected and then it can rather undemocratically, do what it likes in terms of the legislation it chooses to bring forward, or not.
Even if you do not agree with this comparison, there's then the point that the EU Parliament can request the Commission to bring forward legislative proposals. Practically speaking, no such facility exists in our own democracy. (Yes there are private members' bills and what-have-you but the practical opportunities for those to become law are virtually nil.) And whilst you are correct that the Commission is not obligated to act Parliament's requests and can in theory refuse, as far as I am aware that has never happened.
Finally, what you say about there being nothing Parliament can do, is incorrect. The EU Parliament is ultimately sovereign. If the Commission were to refuse, Parliament can pass a censure motion and remove the commission and its commissioners if it wants to. Ultimate power lies with the elected Parliament.
It is claimed that the EU Parliament is simply a rubber-stamping body, given the amount of Commission proposed legislation which is passed. But in reality this is not the case. Yes, Parliament does pass most of the legislation but that is because it supports most of it. Were that not the case, it is free to reject proposal, amend them or ask the Commission to redraft and re-submit. It's not obligated legally, morally or otherwise to bring into law anything which the Commission brings forward.
So honestly, it's really not undemocratic at all. It's just not the same as our democracy. Which as you know also has an unelected body which is able to influence the laws we are subjected to!
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SebastianBlue
President, International Julian Alvarez Fan Club
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- 57,736
As does nearly every other liberal democracy, unless we want to get rid of judicial bodies.
And, unfortunately, the problem with many of those is that they *don’t* always act independently of the intentionally political government entities.
George Hannah
Well-Known Member
Independence rule number one - don't take any notice of USA created rankings of anything
SebastianBlue
President, International Julian Alvarez Fan Club
- Joined
- 25 Jul 2009
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- 57,736
Which list are we meant to consider valid, then?
The ‘Nigel Farage List of the Most Brilliant Schools in the World (That Would Be Made More Brilliant by Telling Europe to **** Off)’?
Good luck getting a private member's bill through our Parliament without government support. And JohnCummingsSon would like to make it more difficult.
Chippy_boy
Well-Known Member
Hmmmm...
Harvard
"The school has produced 49 Nobel laureates"
Cambridge
"its faculty have earned over 80 Nobel Prizes."
Columbia University
"Ninety-six Columbians have won a Nobel Prize, making it third in the world in that coveted category (after Harvard and Cambridge University in the U.K.)"
I see what you mean!
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
Poundshop Mussolini with a warm up act that is literally the shittest comedian in the UK. Oh and the painting doesn't even look a good likeness
Simply 7 funny things people said about the Nigel Farage portrait unveiled by Nigel Farage and Jim Davidson http://thepoke.co.uk/2020/01/30/nigel-farage-portrait-jim-davidson-7-funny/…
Simply 7 funny things people said about the Nigel Farage portrait unveiled by Nigel Farage and Jim Davidson http://thepoke.co.uk/2020/01/30/nigel-farage-portrait-jim-davidson-7-funny/…
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
and of course the end of reciprocal free health care - looking like the 1970's are coming back
UK travellers to EU face end of free roaming and pet travel from 2021
UK travellers to EU face end of free roaming and pet travel from 2021
One day before the UK leaves the European Union, the government has revealed that British holidaymakers and business travellers to the EU face onerous changes when the transition agreement expires on
independent.co.uk
UK travellers to EU face end of free roaming and pet travel from 2021
UK travellers to EU face end of free roaming and pet travel from 2021
One day before the UK leaves the European Union, the government has revealed that British holidaymakers and business travellers to the EU face onerous changes when the transition agreement expires on
independent.co.uk
SebastianBlue
President, International Julian Alvarez Fan Club
- Joined
- 25 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 57,736
That’s my plans to start a travelling zoo that offers FaceTime virtual visits ****ed.and of course the end of reciprocal free health care - looking like the 1970's are coming back
UK travellers to EU face end of free roaming and pet travel from 2021
UK travellers to EU face end of free roaming and pet travel from 2021
One day before the UK leaves the European Union, the government has revealed that British holidaymakers and business travellers to the EU face onerous changes when the transition agreement expires on
independent.co.uk
- Status