Geopolitical impact of Brexit

[Hazir]

48% when the full force of the government and the civil service and incumbency was promoting the status quo. When referenda almost always see a swing to the status quo.

Once Brexit is real, it will no longer be the status quo. It won't have the full backing of the government, the Prime Minister, a £9m leaflet campaign (when the campaigns were only permitted a £7m spending cap all campaign), the Treasury etc, etc, etc - but most of all a lot of people voted Remain not due to any great British love for the European Union but due to fear of the consequences of leaving. If we've left already, that fear will no longer be an issue as having left will be the new status quo.
Apparently he got booed by some of the Brits there, applauded by the French. I don't know, wasn't there obviously. Inappropriate behaviour.
twitter.com/ladylilo2/status/753689008442597376

You didn't ask if I wanted it to happen, if it would happen or should happen. You asked me if there was a possibility. And the answer to that still remains yes. Even if being a member of the EU no longer is the status quo. Norway has had two referenda with a 'no' outcome about EU membership. Still the issue of EU membership hasn't gone away entirely. I don't know about Switzerland, but it wouldn't surprise me if a significant number of Swiss still think EU membership is the way to go. Especially in the western part of the country.

[RandBlade]

I didn't ask if it was possible (anything is possible), I asked "what are the odds". A 5% possibility is very different to a 50% one.

[Hazir]

I'm not going to put numbers on something so in flux as this. I would deplore it, but won't count it out at any time.

[RandBlade]

I think we are both viewing the same thing from different angles. I wouldn't rule it out either, I would just say the series of events to make it possible are extremely unlikely to all happen together.

[RandBlade]

So our new Prime Minister has made it clear there will not be an early Article 50 invocation. The official line being that she wants to get agreement on a deal acceptable to Scotland. Clever.

[Hazir]

Also the other member of the council of ministers of foreign affairs have cancelled a dinner with Boris Johnson this Sunday. Sources in Brussels tells there was a distinct lack of enthousiasm to talk with him about anything.

I guess no reactions to the brake your PM is putting on article 50 today because of Nice. But it wouldn't surprise me if by monday relations will sour just a bit more. You guys really want to get to the point where we invoke article 7 ?

[earthJoker]

U.S. trade chief holds talks on UK trade deal possibilities

The Obama administration's top trade official said on Thursday he has held preliminary discussions with British government officials about how the two countries could pursue bilateral trade relations after Britain leaves the European Union.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman told a Christian Science Monitor media breakfast that he discussed the subject earlier this week with Sajid Javid and Mark Price, Britain's outgoing business and trade secretaries.
(...)
Froman also said that the TTIP negotiations with the European Union will need to be readjusted to account for the loss of Britain from the trading bloc because access to the UK market is a "significant part of what makes the TTIP attractive to the United States," with the Britain taking 25 percent of U.S. goods exports to the EU.

Both sides need to think through "what kind of adjustments of both offers and expectations are going to be needed in order to be able to close these negotiations."

For example, with Europe wanting full access to U.S. public sector procurement, the loss of Britain would remove a quarter of Europe's public procurement market from the deal, he said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-bri...-idUKKCN0ZU2GN

[Hazir]

So? TTIP is going to fail anyway. Either on this side of the Atlantic or the other side. And the Americans would have to be crazy to not react to the UK falling out of the deal if it by some miracle survives.

[RandBlade]

So good job the US is already looking at bilateral deals with us. We can put them as our Foreign Secretary recently said at the front of the queue

[Hazir]

A deal with us being who? Half of your own people don't expect the UK to still exist in a decade.

[earthJoker]

A deal with us being who? Half of your own people don't expect the EU to still exist in a decade.

I corrected that for you.

[Hazir]

I corrected that for you.

Except that that's a lie.

[earthJoker]

I would never do that. How can you say something like that,

[RandBlade]

Except that that's a lie.

Us as in the UK.

Though I still expect the UK to exist within a decade and even if Scotland leaves that won't disband any agreements we have made any more than it would have if they'd left in 2014.

[Aimless]

Nothing to indicate that the US's or Froman's positions have changed from their previous statements: https://next.ft.com/content/dd6853fe...f-79eb4891c97d

Impossible to say what the relationship with the US will look like until we have a better idea of what the relationship with the EU will look like.

[Aimless]

As for the WTO rules, I don't think the UK can get out of trading under WTO rules unless they rejoin the EEA.

[GGT]

Yeah you do realise we were members of Europe for most of the seventies? That by the winter of discontent we'd been a part of Europe for nearly a decade?

What changed after the seventies wasn't membership of Europe it was Thatcherism. It was rolling back the frontiers of the state. Or as Thatcher herself put in famously in Bruges
Parts of modern Europe with centralised failures of governance are resembling more and more our centralised failed state of the seventies. Those who refuse to learn the correct lessons from history are doomed to repeat it.

About that history.....I'm wondering if those "failures" weren't due to monetary policy consolidated by central bankers? You obviously care about currency valuations in the realm of international trade. And maybe you think the British pound can compete just fine against the Eurodollar?

But I don't know if the average English worker would agree after they're plunged into a recession, and their earned money has lost purchasing value. It's not like they'll be able to get a loan for a London apartment (even after RE values plummet) if they lose their job in the meantime.....

[earthJoker]

Still the issue of EU membership hasn't gone away entirely. I don't know about Switzerland, but it wouldn't surprise me if a significant number of Swiss still think EU membership is the way to go. Especially in the western part of the country.

Just read this now. I don't really know what you mean by significant number. 20%, 30%? You know you need 50%+1 and the majority of cantons to make Switzerland join the EU, and we are far from that, very far.

[Hazir]

Just read this now. I don't really know what you mean by significant number. 20%, 30%? You know you need 50%+1 and the majority of cantons to make Switzerland join the EU, and we are far from that, very far.

Interesting, you also tell people the colour of the sky on a regular basis? Or do you reserve this pointing out the obvious for the members of this forum?

[earthJoker]

Only to those that want to tell me it's green.

[Hazir]

A little bit of sabre rattling on the EU side of the equation. According to Bloomberg article 7 procedures are tentatively considered in order to let May know that the EU members will not wait forever for article 50 notification.

[Aimless]

Link is borked, click here instead: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...nd-over-brexit

[RandBlade]

Article 7 is for nations violating human rights, which basic human rights are we violating?

[Hazir]

Article 7 is for nations violating human rights, which basic human rights are we violating?

Article 7 isn't limited to human rights, it also refers to rule of law and democracy. Also, it' s not called the nuclear option for nothing.

[RandBlade]

We respect democracy and the rule of war. Strike two.

[Hazir]

The fun of article 7 is that you don't get to decide that

I say, we should invoke it if you start (pre-)negotiations for free trade deals with third nations, which you are not allowed to do under EU rules.

[earthJoker]

Oh please do that. Can't wait to see how you tear yourself apart.

[Hazir]

Oh please do that. Can't wait to see how you tear yourself apart.

Gosh, so who was talking with the Swiss? Enjoy Chinese tariffs much?

[earthJoker]

Oh, cool, I didn't had my cup of wathaboutism yet today.

[Hazir]

Oh, cool, I didn't had my cup of wathaboutism yet today.

Need tiny violin with that? Chinese made would be tariff free.