The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[limpid]

1 hour ago, Enda said:

Correction: the £2 difference between surplus or deficit neglects the big picture of £200 of trade, not £100. UK buys £100 of Guinness, Ireland buys £99 of Aston Villa kit, that’s £199 of trade. Selling one more Dean Saunders sticker that costs £2 (and thus turning the trade deficit into a trade surplus) is really small time.

A bad example. Guinness is owned by a London based company. Still £199 of trade, but all deficit from the Irish pov.

[ml1dch]

 

Using the logic of the last couple of pages, we must be getting desperate...

[Enda]

53 minutes ago, limpid said:

A bad example. Guinness is owned by a London based company. Still £199 of trade, but all deficit from the Irish pov.

Intentional example!

Guinness shipped to Britain counts as an Irish export regardless of ownership of firm.

[Enda]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

Nah, I don't see it like that. There's more factors at play.

State Aid - the EU want the UK not to use state aid to out compete EU business. Fair enough. The EU accept EU nations can't do it either - them's the rules. But the EU want to be able to use EU funds to aid businesses. The UK is not happy with the double standards - so it's not just "the rules of the game" the EU are trying (and who can blame them) to rig the game.

The EU wants EU funds for industries. State aid laws allow tax breaks for e.g. solar panel producers, and it would violate competition law to divert those funds to some preferred business. But, fair enough, that would be legitimate grounds for debate if HMG had agreed in principle to non-regression clauses. But they haven't.

 

2 hours ago, blandy said:

The fishing thing - the continental nations have had, since the UK joined, a proper lopsided advantage - the UK gots to keep a small fraction of the fishing in UK waters - Spain, France etc get way more. So the UK wants to rectify that and move to doing what Norway does and negotiate annually on the next years "allowances/quotas". France etc. want to keep their big share. Small beer in the big scheme of things, but it's a kind of talismanic issue for all the fishing nations. THE UK keeping just 10% of UK rights is a really bad outcome, politically, for UK fishermen and for the public. It matters more because essentially EVERYTHING else the UK will get will be "worse" than what we had before. It's pretty much the only possible claim to an upside the tories could shout about [and even then, even with more fish, they'd get stuck in ports in queues and hit by tariff, so it'd be a hollow "win"]

Fair enough.

 

2 hours ago, blandy said:

France does have a veto - national parliaments have to approve any deal.

If it's considered an EU competence, it doesn't go to the parliaments. My understanding is the negotiations are being conducted under Article 218, which requires a qualified majority at the Council level but doesn't go to parliaments. If it's considered mixed, then it might, but it's not true that any deal has to go to national parliaments.

[LondonLax]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

I find the fish thing quite bizarre, because in exchange for giving access to UK water we get access to EU water. It’s a pretty fair trade you’d have thought, and an easy sell to the people of the UK.

Fishing is a small time industry but the UK currently does seem to get screwed pretty badly on their current fishing deal. For example France has the rights to catch all the tasty cod in UK waters. The UK only seems to have rights to catch mackerel that no one in the UK really wants.

Whilst the current arrangement does seem unfair it’s also very small beer in the grand scheme of things. The real fight is over the UK’s ability to trade freely whilst giving UK companies lower regulations (so called state aid). 

[It's Your Round]

Didn’t the government sell off most of the UK’s fishing rights to the EU, some years back? Seems hypocritical to be complaining about that now. 

[Genie]

2 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Fishing is a small time industry but the UK currently does seem to get screwed pretty badly on their current fishing deal. For example France has the rights to catch all the tasty cod in UK waters. The UK only seems to have rights to catch mackerel that no one in the UK really wants.

Whilst the current arrangement does seem unfair it’s also very small beer in the grand scheme of things. The real fight is over the UK’s ability to trade freely whilst giving UK companies lower regulations (so called state aid). 

That did cross my mind. The UK doesn’t think “you fish ours, we’ll fish yours” as an equal trade. 
If it continues to be a sticking point I assume it’s because the UK wants something on top for access.

[Enda]

17 minutes ago, It's Your Round said:

Didn’t the government sell off most of the UK’s fishing rights to the EU, some years back? Seems hypocritical to be complaining about that now. 

Sort of. HMG has a quota of fish/number of licences they’re allowed to allocate, and they let many of them end up in the hands of Dutch, Spanish, etc companies.

Of course, the EU often gets blamed for this, for no good reason.

[Genie]

 

[Genie]

Quote

In a phone call today on the on-going negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom, we welcomed the fact that progress has been achieved in many areas. 

"Nevertheless, significant differences remain on three critical issues: level playing field, governance and fisheries. 

"Both sides underlined that no agreement is feasible if these issues are not resolved.

“Whilst recognising the seriousness of these differences, we agreed that a further effort should be undertaken by our negotiating teams to assess whether they can be resolved.

“We are therefore instructing our chief negotiators to reconvene tomorrow in Brussels.

“We will speak again on Monday evening.”

Link

Each sides put their cards on the table every day, there is a gap. Do they just stare at them for 8 hours then agree to negotiate some more the next day?

Edited December 5, 2020 by Genie

[ml1dch]

16 minutes ago, Genie said:

Link

Each sides put their cards on the table every day, there is a gap. Do they just stare at them for 8 hours then agree to negotiate some more the next day?

Not a million miles away. But there are reasons that is the case. I'd highly recommend this as an explainer.

 

 

[blandy]

5 hours ago, Enda said:

State aid laws allow tax breaks for e.g. solar panel producers, and it would violate competition law to divert those funds to some preferred business.

That’ll be EU law? The uk isn’t in the EU ( unfortunately)

[StefanAVFC]

Here we go

And....

words removed is too a nice a word for them.

[chrisp65]

 

‘....so, what you’re claiming is, these fish, they can just swim around and become Belgian fish, or Irish fish? You might want to check your facts there luv, that’s not how it was explained to me by Mark Francois. Where is Mark by the way?

Anyway, as I was saying we invented wiff waff so I’m a bit surprised you guys are leaving it so late to cave in to all our demands that we’ve been very very vague about. Onwards! Tally wotsit! 

I’ve closed the curtains so it looks like I’m working late, Naked Attraction is starting in a minute, I like the fat ones with boobies like my nanny had.’

 

 

[StefanAVFC]

I don't see how there'll be anything other than no-deal to be honest.

[Genie]

2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

He’s actually just taken his phone off the hook because people keep foolishly trying to ask their boss what he advises they do.

This way they have to make the decision and he can claim he had nothing to do with it.

[StefanAVFC]

It's just stupid and illogical and people eat it up.

No Deal is apparently the best outcome, but Johnson also needs to go on TV and blame this 'best outcome' on the EU and France.

[Genie]

21 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’ve closed the curtains so it looks like I’m working late

I have absolutely zero sympathy or gratitude for him working all weekend late into the evening either as he campaigned for this shit show promising we’d be far better off as a result.

I hope the stress isn’t pushing his heart rate up too much...

[ml1dch]

 

MI6 Rogue on Twitter has been worth a follow for quite a while now. 

[Genie]

Why are the talking about worst case? It was supposed to be the start of a new era of prosperity for the UK.

I’m confused.