Politics

[birch-chorley]

4 hours ago, Mounts Kipper said:

You can’t make countries stay in a union by holding them to ransom, I think by negotiating a fair deal for the U.K. that would actually show the EU in a better light and rather than weaken it might actually strengthen the Union. 

I don’t think they are ‘making us stay in’ 

We talked about Switzerland and Norway a lot during the referendum, ‘they aren’t in the EU and they are doing fine’ 

We want the same access that they have but we don’t want to pay the same price that they do (financial contributions, Following EU regulations, European courts, free movement etc) 

To be fair to the EU they said from the start it isn’t an a la Carte menu. To get the full benefit you have to sign up to some fundamentals 

The only reason anyone can be surprised in the EU’s position now is if they had their fingers in their ears for the last 4 years. The EU position hasn’t changed, ours hasn’t either (we want our cake and we want to eat it as well) 

 

[Spider]

1 minute ago, miamiwhite said:

Look  Buttercup, just be a good boy and accept defeat again.....it will make you a better and less angry man. Ask Spider for proof of this 😃 

You’ll have to do better than that Kimosabe

[birch-chorley]

29 minutes ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

Aye, but France and Germany are the ultimate paymasters, and will be the ones pulling the strings.

As were we 

We pulled the strings 

Anything that came out of Brussels was driven by the U.K, France and Germany deciding what’s what 

[miamiwhite]

2 minutes ago, birch-chorley said:

As were we 

We pulled the strings 

Anything that came out of Brussels was driven by the U.K, France and Germany deciding what’s what 

And that is vital now re the voting power. No wonder the French and Krauts aren't happy.

[Cheese]

31 minutes ago, miamiwhite said:

Look  Buttercup, just be a good boy and accept defeat again.....it will make you a better and less angry man. Ask Spider for proof of this 😃 

Pretty sure Escobarp can fight his own battles. Sure he'll be swooning at you jumping in for him though.

[Escobarp]

Just now, Cheese said:

Pretty sure Escobarp can fight his own battles. Sure he'll be swooning at you jumping in for him though.

There is no battle cheese. 

[Cheese]

2 minutes ago, Escobarp said:

There is no battle cheese. 

A turn of phrase.

[bolty58]

On 12/12/2020 at 14:53, gonzo said:

No way bolty. We all have our disagreements and debate, some can handle it and some cant...

Dont you be going anywhere my friend. 

Be a sad day if you ever fucked it off.

Theres nobody Id be happy to see fuck it off. 

 

Cheers A. Considering going 'off grid' mate. Splendid isolation. Away from the screechers, PC shithouses and other assorted recalcitrants/undesirables like some I could mention on here.

 

[bolty58]

On 12/12/2020 at 08:31, Sweep said:

I'd have thought Bolty wouldn't mind a Ben Sherman shirt

He really thinks I would bite on that? FFS.

[Spider]

17 days

[mickbrown]

41 minutes ago, Spider said:

17 days

Boltexit

[Farrelli]

48 minutes ago, mickbrown said:

Boltexit

Bolted

[miamiwhite]

Ooops  🙂

 

 

 

[Tonge moor green jacket]

14 hours ago, birch-chorley said:

As were we 

We pulled the strings 

Anything that came out of Brussels was driven by the U.K, France and Germany deciding what’s what 

We're not now, so that comment cements mine- the real powers will decide.

[Guest]

John Redwood

John Redwood is MP for Wokingham, and is a former Secretary of State for Wales. 

No Deal would be a good outcome for the UK. It would mean that we take back control of our borders, our money, our laws and our fish, as promised by the Leave campaign. The deals on offer from the EU fall well short of improving on No Deal.

It wants to continue overfishing our seas with its huge industrial trawlers. It wants to control our law making in all areas related in any way to business and trade. It wants its court to adjudicate disputes between us – in a clear violation of usual international practice, in which an impartial arbitrator is used, or the two sides need to argue matters through to agreement. Its every word and action signals that it does not wish to accept the fact that we have voted to be an independent country, and intend to be one.

When Theresa May with senior civil servants foolishly sought to recreate many of the features of our EU membership under the cover of a so-called comprehensive partnership, the EU made it impossible for her. If we just wanted a free trade agreement like Canada or Japan, that seemed to be on offer.

Once a new UK government offered to do just, that the EU decided to impede and prevent it, and to pretend the UK still really wanted special access to the Single Market which in turn required subservience to its laws.

There was little good faith in trying to implement the Political Agreement by the EU, given that it said that a free trade agreement would lie at the heart of a new relationship between the EU and the UK. The EU has always behaved with discipline and severity in its negotiating stance, assuming that it can have its cake and eat it. It has repeated its mantra that you cannot have access to the Single Market without accepting many limitations on your freedoms.

This of course is simply not true for the rest of the world, which trades with the EU without having to obey its laws. In every other case, the EU accepts mutual respect for World Trade Organisation rules. The EU as a member of the WTO accepts its disputes resolution. The EU has a history of some violations of WTO rules with penalties – as with subsidies to Airbus.

I was asked to give many speeches during the EU referendum campaign to business audiences. I always said No Deal was the only outcome we could guarantee. It was an outcome which would give a good answer for the UK, achieving all our aims to be independent. On the past economic evidence, I expected a No Deal Brexit to offer us a small boost to GDP if we used the new freedoms well.

I used to go on to say it would be very easy – if there was political will – to add a free trade agreement on top of No deal, which would be beneficial to both sides. In most free trade deals, there are delays and problems with each side wishing to defend a tariff here and a non-tariff barrier there.

In the case of the UK and EU, we start from a position where there are no tariffs and no untowards barriers to goods trade, so it would just be a question of rolling over what we have.  I also sometimes added that some thought the EU would not behave well or want to do that.

In that event, surely it shows how right we are to leave if our EU neighbours, friends and allies behave in such a silly way towards us, to the point of hurting their own access to our own lucrative market. To the EU, the UK has indeed been Treasure Island. It has taken large payments from us in the form of our net contributions to the EU, and has ru a huge surplus on goods and food trade through tariff-free entry.

The Prime Minister has been clear and right in saying we will leave the Single Market and Customs Union. We want our own international trade policy, and will be a more powerful and consistent voice for freer trade than the EU. To do this, we need to have full control of all matters relating to trade and business.

The Single Market has been damaging to the UK overall. In our first decade in the Common Market, as it was then erroneously called, we lost half our motor manufacturing capacity as tariffs were removed. Over the years, we have seen the loss of most of our steel industry and aluminium output, serial damage to textile and ceramic manufacture, the mass closure of foundries and the break up and contraction of our chemical industry.  Our market share in temperate food production has fallen sharply, and we have gone from being a net exporter of fish to a shrunken industry, with consumers reliant on imports for much of our demand.

EU grants and subsidies have bid some business investment away from the UK. EU rules have often been based around the needs and methods of large-scale continental producers at the expense of our firms. The EU has failed to negotiate trade deals at all with two of our largest trading partners, the USA and China, and has not bothered about proper service sector access in other deals, despite the UK’s strong position in many service areas.

Our average growth rate was faster before entry into the Common Market post-war than during the years of Common market membership, which in turn was faster than our average growth rate in the years which followed 1992 and the so-called completion of the Single Market.

The UK establishment has never been willing to analyse the data and understand what was truly happening. It visited upon us the disaster of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, whose predictable impact caused a major recession at the very point there was meant to be a boost from completing the Single Market.

So how can now use our freedoms as we leave with No Deal, assuming there is no last-minute wish to be sensible by the EU and agree a free trade deal?   We should be up and running with tax cuts – at last, we can take VAT off all those green products from insulation to boiler controls the EU insists on.

We can lift tariffs from South African oranges and other tropical fruit and food that we cannot grow for ourselves. We should pursue our offer to the USA of removing EU retaliatory tariffs on its goods if it will drop their tariff on Scotch whisky, which was an unwelcome hit from an EU trade spat.

We should set up freeports and enterprise zones to marshal new investment and make more in the UK. We should reorient farm subsidies to slash the food miles, and grow more of our own salads, fruits,and vegetables. We should land more of our fish at home, and add fish processing to create meals and products that we want to eat or which we can export.

We should put in more electricity capacity, and end our growing dependence on imported EU power. As the Government encourages the planting of many more trees, we should ensure more sustainable forestry to cut the massive timber imports.

These are all good economic reasons to press for the No Deal Brexit. The best reason of all is to be free, living in an independent country. I want to help pass on a country that is self-governing – a beacon for democracy.  Brexit means taking back control of our laws, our borders and our money. That way we will be better governed. If any given government lets us down we can sack it, and get the answer we want from another. That is something we can never do as members of the  EU. They give us the laws and we do not control the government.

[Winchester White]

I am no expert but I expect an international trade expert could ride a horse and cart through that from Redwood.

Where was that published, BD?

[mickbrown]

22 minutes ago, Mr Grey said:

👍🏻

Lost me at 'John Redwood'😀

 

 

[Mounts Kipper]

4 minutes ago, mickbrown said:

Lost me at 'John Redwood'😀

 

 

You can stick your fingers in your ears all you like, the facts are he’s correct. 

[mickbrown]

1 minute ago, Mounts Kipper said:

You can stick your fingers in your ears all you like, the facts are he’s correct. 

He's a broken robot

[Guest]

Just now, mickbrown said:

He's a correct broken robot

EFY

[mickbrown]

2 minutes ago, boltondiver said:

EFY

At least quote someone who's not a dick.

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, Winchester White said:

I am no expert but I expect an international trade expert could ride a horse and cart through that from Redwood.

Where was that published, BD?

Here, Winny

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/

 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, mickbrown said:

At least quote someone who's not a dick.

I met him once. In a lift.

[Spider]

Just now, boltondiver said:

I met him once. In a lift.

You meet dicks in lifts?

Liberal.

[mickbrown]

1 minute ago, boltondiver said:

Here, Winny

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/

 

Does he mention his advice for investors to avoid the UK on there?