I can't avoid quoting this from the FT:
UK chancellor Philip Hammond has told business leaders he wants to negotiate a simple “off-the-shelf” transition deal with Brussels to maintain current trading relations with Europe for at least two years after Brexit.
Mr Hammond said he wants a “standstill” transition leaving companies with full access to the single market and customs union, followed by a further “implementation phase” while a new, UK-specific trade accord is put in place.
The chancellor believes it would be a waste of time and political capital trying to persuade the EU to adopt a new legal framework for an interim agreement, according to government officials and business people who have discussed the idea with him in recent days.
Mr Hammond and Brexit secretary David Davis are edging towards a transition deal on terms broadly laid down by Brussels. One British official said the government would seek a “swift, broad and simple” deal.
Let's put that another way. Brexit now means giving up all our influence in the EU and absolutely nothing else, and staying in this limbo for as long as possible.
Norwegian deal, anyone?
It's coming our way soon.
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Hammond is obviously emboldened by the election result and feels able to go out on a limb. However, I would love to have seen the reaction of those the fanatical wing of the Tory Party as they listened to his explanation of this on the Today programme. As you said previously, Richard, this could get very messy.
It’s a bloody shambles.
Just when we need politicians to man up and tell received public opinion that it is wrong we get this.
Mind you – when the same politicians have been winding people up? What is it that they say?
‘Peeing in the wind comes back at you twice as hard!’
It is a pity that the more rational amongst us get dragged down by this stuff.
I’m reminded that Simon Jenkins said ‘…’Whichever way we vote, if it’s Out it will be a wishy-washy In, and if it’s In it’ll be a wishy-washy Out.’ Perhaps it’s the British way?
Yes.
Norwegian blue time again.
We leave the EEA, then rejoin it again, on worse terms.
Even Monty-Pythons couldn’t make a sketch work like that…
True
Madness, but given where we could have been had the conservatives got their landslide I’d happily take that outcome.
John, I love it! Brexit – the farcical piece of stupidity that keeps on giving. Propelled by foaming at the mouth cultists.
Hammond was Today this morning criticising Labour’s investment plans. ‘They would borrow £250 billion and how are they going to pay the interest on that? He quoted £5.8 billion interest. What jobs will they have to cut to pay the interest?’
Has he never heard of the multiplier effect?
Is he ignorant? Are the civil servants not telling him or are they being ignored because he thinks he knows best? Or does he know they are right and choosing to carry out party ideology instead?
Perhaps I’m feeling paranoid this morning?
He is ignorant and is peddling a lie
After inflation the interest is zero
He’s even ignoring that fact
Forgive for asking but if it is true that inflation means that interest is zero how would that work with my mortgage? At the moment interest rate on my mortgage is lower than inflation but I still seem to be paying interest. Have I missed a trick?
Yes
Your mortgage is being repaid by inflation because the real sum you owe is reducing in value
My mortgage may be slightly less in real terms over time but I am still paying money to the bank, am I not? The interest is some £6,000 a year. That is real money that I am really paying. The capital I repay is real money that I am really paying. I could be using that money to buy other things. My income is not actually going up much at the moment. My interest rate is fixed for the next 10 years. Inflation makes not the slightest bit of difference to this.
It seems somewhat semantic nonsense to suggest I am better off in a few years time if I have no more money, am paying the same, everything costs more but inflation has slightly moved.
If that is supposed to make me feel better it does not. Nor will it give me a single extra penny to spend.
You may think it nonsense but you are wrong
It was inflation that meant baby boomers paid off their mortgages without ever paying the true cost and so the wealth divide grew
And as a matter of fact you are enjoying a benefit whilst still suffering a significant demand in your liquidity
It is blindingly obvious that he is looking for a holding pattern that can be put in place and extended past the next election.
Hammond’s proposal effectively recognises that Brexit will be disastrous and his govt. will lose office if it is implemented before the next GE.
Exactly so.
Did we ever have any real influence? For me our role has always been similar to doing the okey cokey. Sadly we never truly engaged and lost any influence in my opinion.
The Economist (not my favourite magazine, given its propensity to peddle the sort of economics that has recently come in for a caning on the Blog) had this interesting and helpful article recently:
https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21725335-eu-offers-many-menus-norwegian-turkish-there-no-la-carte-option-six
The Economist article is very good. Thanks for that.
Hammond was suggesting some sort of Norwegian/Turkish fudge – Norway is not in the EU Customs Union; Turkey is not in the Single Market; if we go for a temporary standstill to buy more time to negotiate a final solution to the European question, presumably we would want our membership of both to continue.
It would leave us subject to EU law and the ECJ, with the four freedoms still in place, and making EU budget contributions. Hardly “taking back control”. That surely could only be a temporary interim measure: even Hammond was saying that it would have to end before 2022.
Since out art50 notification started a two-year countdown, which requires a unanimous vote by the remaining 27 to be extended…..and those states have had over a year of intense insults, it not racism, by press and politicians, I consider hammys’ chance of a two-year freeby to be zero.
I suspect Hammond is struggling to find a spreadsheet to assist him with this current mess.
Well at least we will have some good deals going with the Americans. George Monbiot has a good piece about the deals we are making to import US chlorine washed chickens. It is well worth a read.
http://www.monbiot.com/2017/07/27/game-of-chicken/
You have to laugh when people like Andrea Leadsom say things like ‘Everyone knew that a Vote to Leave was a Vote to Leave the Single Market’. So she was arguing not to be like countries in the Single Market.
Yet here she is in a debate, and her first big point to get you onside to her view is to say ‘Look at Switzerland’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6LVNpfES8k
Yes I know Switzerland is not in the EEA, but it does have a set of bilateral deals that replicate EEA membership and has free movement for work.
And she thinks she is being entirely consistent.
Farage has used the Swiss in his arguments too.