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

[HanoiVillan]

Talk about mission creep. 

EDIT: refers to how, somehow, Brexit has become 'build a new global satellite navigation system'

Edited May 8, 2018 by HanoiVillan

[blandy]

On 06/05/2018 at 10:29, bickster said:

...I predict a surge in Libdem support soon after Labour make it clear their policy is really a hard Brexit policy

They won't make it clear. That's not their way at the top of Labour.

Ultimately, I think both Labour and the tories are just kicking the can down the road a bit, every time. Eventually, you're right they will have to leave their cloud cuckoo lands, but not until absolutely forced to do so.

[Awol]

5 hours ago, snowychap said:

Revealed: Britain's £3 billion 'sat nav' system to rival EU's after Brexit

 

Mr Peck is talking out of his behind. The EU Commission is threatening to lock the UK out of the secure data side of the Galileo project as punishment for leaving, citing that the UK will be a security risk.  We have responded with a shrug and said we’ll do it ourselves. 

Neither position is true, it’s just a tactic by the EU to draw up a nonsensical position that can be resiled from later as a ‘concession’. 

The secure element of the Galileo system is reliant on UK technology, including the advanced encryption. If the UK were ‘locked out’ as the EU suggests, there would be no Galileo system for the foreseeable future. 

Although tiresome (and great sport for the likes of Peck) it’s nothing more than political posturing. 

[blandy]

3 hours ago, Awol said:

The EU Commission is threatening to lock the UK out of the secure data side of the Galileo project as punishment for leaving, citing that the UK will be a security risk.

That’s partly right, but not completely as I understand it. The programme is an EU programme and Britain is leaving the EU. Leave means leave...etc. It’s yet another area where the idiots of the leave campaign and the numpty government had no thought or consideration or awareness of. I think the engineers and scientists and accountants want and need the UK to stay involved, but our politicians were utterly ignorant and the EU is, as you say, using our foot shooting tendency against us.  The programme is run by and funded by the EU. Our lot seem to be perhaps acting as they are because to stay in it would set a precedent they don’t want to concede - being under the control of the EU. 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

6 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

'build a new global satellite navigation system'

We are going to need a new name, how about “Commonwealth Universal Navigation Traffic Satellite" ?

[Awol]

17 minutes ago, blandy said:

That’s partly right, but not completely as I understand it. The programme is an EU programme and Britain is leaving the EU. Leave means leave...etc. It’s yet another area where the idiots of the leave campaign and the numpty government had no thought or consideration or awareness of. I think the engineers and scientists and accountants want and need the UK to stay involved, but our politicians were utterly ignorant and the EU is, as you say, using our foot shooting tendency against us.  The programme is run by and funded by the EU. Our lot seem to be perhaps acting as they are because to stay in it would set a precedent they don’t want to concede - being under the control of the EU. 

Then we have a different understanding of the project. Third (non EU) parties will have access to the Galileo system, for example the US will be users - despite having GPS. 

The part the EU want to freeze the UK out of is the Public Regulated Service (PCS) which is the government only access data service. It’s also the part that will run on UK encryption tech! 

In addition they will freeze out UK companies from the ongoing build, but need UK tech to make it work...

You can quote ‘leave means leave’ but that supposedly doesn’t apply to UK contributions to European defence and security, which the PCS aspect clearly falls under - and yes we’ve paid over a billion pounds into its development. 

If the EU throws this onto the table it could have unintended consequences in terms of what they expect to receive from the UK in all kinds of areas, but as stated, it’s just (imho) an unconvincing negotiaton tactic because without UK know-how they can’t complete the project - at least not for a long time. 

 

 

[blandy]

@Awol, I suspect we do have different understandings. I understood the programme to be an EU funded one, the encrypted PRS part to be for EU state authorities ( military, police etc.) use. The whole thing is supposed to be interoperable with the US GPS network, though not the disabled PY code aspects. Other nations can buy and use the bog standard kit and maybe the EU will share with NATO allies in due course. But basically it’s an EU programme and we funded part of it as an EU member and contribute expertise and get work share as a consequence. It’s not, afaik part of any nonEU cooperation thing.

[Awol]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

@Awol, I suspect we do have different understandings. I understood the programme to be an EU funded one, the encrypted PRS part to be for EU state authorities ( military, police etc.) use. The whole thing is supposed to be interoperable with the US GPS network, though not the disabled PY code aspects. Other nations can buy and use the bog standard kit and maybe the EU will share with NATO allies in due course. But basically it’s an EU programme and we funded part of it as an EU member and contribute expertise and get work share as a consequence. It’s not, afaik part of any nonEU cooperation thing.

EU funded means paid for by the member states though, doesn’t it? By default that means the net contributors, of which we are the second largest. The PRS is, as you say, a strategic military asset for government use, and we along with France are the largest net European contributors to European security. Excluding the UK from PRS would (imo) be a punitive political decision, but as discussed without UK input that won’t be viable for some time. 

Norway is slated to be another user in addition to the US, although I don’t know if they were being offered PRS access. 

Anyway the point is no UK tech = no PRS, making this whole thing a charade anyway. 

 

[snowychap]

On 08/05/2018 at 15:22, Awol said:

Mr Peck is talking out of his behind.

My main reason for the post was the comic angle but wasn't the article a Torygraph one?

I did watch some of the Exiting the EU committee questioning yesterday which included the bigwig from AirBus and some others involved in the area:

Quote

The secure element of the Galileo system is reliant on UK technology, including the advanced encryption. If the UK were ‘locked out’ as the EU suggests, there would be no Galileo system for the foreseeable future.

That's not what I got from their evidence.

They said that tendering for Galileo-related stuff is already being barred for UK-based companies.

They said that it wouldn't be fair to say that there wasn't the expertise within the EU27 to take over the work being done by UK companies.

They certainly didn't suggest that Galileo would be kaput. They did say that it was technically possible for the UK to come up with a similar type of system but this might not be a piece of piss.

Edited May 9, 2018 by snowychap

[StefanAVFC]

 

[HanoiVillan]

What a completely pointless waste of time that fine is. 

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

What a completely pointless waste of time that fine is. 

Just like almost every other form of punishment for electoral malpractice.

It generally amounts to, you won, you cheated so pay a fine... but you still won

[wazzap24]

I'm not a particularly violent man, but I could HAPPILY stamp on Arron Banks' head until it was a very small puddle of mush.

I mean that sincerely as well. 

[HanoiVillan]

Sajid Javid makes a bid for political immortality by starring an anecdote that sounds like a rejected 'The Thick of It' script:

Guy Verhofstadt's team then sent all of the journalists a summary of the meeting anyway 

[bickster]

You couldn't make it up or rejected from The Thick of it Scripts...

Quote

The British government will host a summit encouraging six European countries to join the EU for the sake of their “security, stability and prosperity”, months before it is due to sign its own Brexit withdrawal deal with Brussels.

London will in July play host to Western Balkans governments including Serbia and Albania, as well as existing EU member states, to discuss reforms to pave the way to future EU enlargement.

The summit is part of the so-called Berlin Process – a series of meetings aimed at supporting the region towards joining the bloc and described by the European parliament’s research arm as “bringing a new perspective and impetus to the enlargement process”.

More on link

INdie

[LondonLax]

Maybe the EU is actually a migrating economic zone that gradually rolls eastwards around the globe? 

In another 50 years perhaps it will be an east Asia trading bloc and Australia can join the fun?

[ml1dch]

1 minute ago, LondonLax said:

In another 50 years perhaps it will be an east Asia trading bloc and Australia can join the fun?

This is probably the relevant place for a Eurovision quip.

[bickster]

Quote

Two trends propping up economic growth in Britain have suddenly reversed as more consumers realise the damage from Brexit is permanent, not transient

• The UK savings rate suddenly looks like it is going to go up.
• That's because Brits are not taking on new debts.
• Credit Suisse argues that consumers were willing to tolerate the short-term negatives of Brexit, but they are not going to finance the long-term.
• People are "realizing that the damage to their real incomes from the Brexit vote is permanent, not transient," CS says.
• None of this looks good for economic growth.

British consumers have stopped taking on more debt and started saving their money again, in a sudden reversal of two trends that propped up economic growth in Britain over the last year. If the trend continues - and Credit Suisse analysts Neville Hill and Sonali Punhani told clients recently they believe it will - it will hurt one of the main drivers of GDP growth in the UK: consumer spending.

Since the EU Referendum of 2016, Brits have done two things with their money:

• Go shopping on credit, racking up debt.
• Reduce their monthly saving to historic lows.

That has kept a rising tide of consumer cash washing through the economy.

But the tide is about to turn, Hill and Punhani say. "We increasingly judge that the UK consumer is retrenching and rebuilding its saving rate, having allowed it to plummet in the wake of the Brexit vote. That retrenchment may be due to consumers ... realizing that the damage to their real incomes from the Brexit vote is permanent, not transient."

Here is their first piece of evidence: The rate of household savings has climbed again recently, after hitting sudden record lows. That might imply that consumers want to start saving again, after two years of not really caring:

The second piece of evidence is what's happening to consumer debt. In the post 2008-era, consumers made a yearslong push to reduce their debts. That changed in 2016, when consumers seemed to become a bit more relaxed about taking on credit, and household debt levels went up again. But over the last couple of months, the Credit Suisse team argue, Brits have suddenly gone shy of debt again:

Taken together the two sudden changes suggest that consumers are frightened of the future, and want to hoard cash and get rid of their liabilities to others.

The obvious consequence of this is that consumers are spending less. As Business Insider noted on May 10 and April 29, consumers have pulled in their horns and retail sales have gone down.

Brexit had an unusual effect on the UK economy: It lowered the value of the pound, suddenly making everyone poorer

Brexit has had an unusual effect on the UK economy. It suddenly lowered the value of the pound, driving inflation, which raised prices faster than wages and made everyone poorer. The CS analysts believe consumers were willing to tolerate that if it only lasted a short time. And the rise in debt was more of an affect from rising interest rates and shrinking real incomes (the actual value of the money you keep after inflation has been accounted for), not consumers' willingness to blow out their credit cards and overdrafts.

But now, Hill and Punhani say, consumers seem to believe that the post-Brexit period of weakness in income growth isn't temporary. It's permanent.

"That's important, as it suggests that the shift from household de-leveraging to re-leveraging in the last few years was a consequence of the shock to household incomes after Brexit rather than a decisive change of behaviour on the part of households. Once again, the performance of borrowing and savings in 2016-17 looks peculiar and anomalous.

"... But the squeeze on real incomes has not reversed, or proved temporary. As that becomes apparent, the risk is that they reverse that unusual and excessive cut in the savings rate, and seek to resume the process of deleveraging," they wrote in a recent research note.

They regard this as an "underlying domestic weakness in the UK."

"That would be significant. Despite a modest pick up in real household disposable income growth, a rising savings ratio would imply poor consumer spending and provide a headwind to overall UK growth," they say.

Business Insider Espana

[bickster]

Support for Brexit falls sharply in NI, in the referendum, Leave got 44% of the vote, polls now indicating this has fallen by 13% to 31%

[wazzap24]

5 hours ago, bickster said:

Support for Brexit falls sharply in NI, in the referendum, Leave got 44% of the vote, polls now indicating this has fallen by 13% to 31%

The best thing for all concerned is to have another referendum, but only people in NI can vote on it.