I got around to looking at the Brexit White Paper over the weekend.
The overwhelming impression I was left with was ‘Why are we doing this?'.
The detailed impression was ‘This is a shoddy piece of work'.
Let me take as example two paragraphs. The first is on state aid, and says:
The UK has long been a proponent of a rigorous state aid system — this is good for taxpayers and consumers, and ensures an efficient allocation of resources. The UK has an excellent record on compliance, and has been among the lowest granters of state aid as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the EU. In 2016 the UK gave 0.3 per cent of GDP as state aid, half the EU average of 0.7 per cent.
This is pure hype, based on dogma, that assumes the Tories will stay in power forever and so persuades absolutely no one of anything. The style is antagonistic from whichever angle viewed. Given that what is being negotiated is little short of a new constitutional arrangement for the UK, who is the government trying to convince of what, and why are they naive enough to think such language should work?
More important is this one on tax that follows a few paragraphs later:
The UK's proposal for its future economic partnership with the EU would not fetter its sovereign discretion on tax, including to set direct or indirect tax rates, and to set its own minimum tax rates.
So, it is said that the UK will not compete on state aid but it may be a tax haven. That's really going to fly with the EU, isn't it? And it's really going to sell well at home as well. You can just see all those supporting Brexit queuing, in very good British style, to protest, shouting:
What do we want?
Tax Cuts
Who for?
The wealthy and large corporations
When do we want them?
Now
I don't think so.
In which case not only do I think such a paragraph antagonistic tio Europe, it's inflammatory at home.
But it does say there really are those in the Conservatives who think tax haven UK is what this is all about.
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Excellent analysis here:
https://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-brexit-white-paper-hard-brexit-with.html?m=1
Thanks
Worth reading
They look like they are going for a combination of State Aid ( but only to their mates ) along with the tax haven route. Consider that the UK spends about £3bn a year on subsidies to owners of farm land, but only if your farm is big enough. No help for the little guy with less than 5 hectares. And add in the other elements of subsidies to land owners such as being able to position solar arrays and wind turbines, then that’s pretty much your 0.3% GDP figure. The narrative being planted in our brains by this neoliberal White Paper is that this is a low number, so it’s ok to keep it. But there will be no subsidies to coal mining, steel making or quarrying, because working class jobs reasons.
The opinion polls seem to suggest the Tories have bungled and the working class parties are rising again, so it’s not all bad. We may not need to put the CPRE bourgeoisie types up against the wall after all.
From the very beginning I have asked where the money is in all this. When one looks at the size of the tax avoidance industry it’s not surprising that the main aim of Brexit is a UK tax haven.
I still do not think it the main aim
But it would appear to be an aim
Tax haven – plus wholesale deregulation, especially on labour and environment and further state cutbacks and privatisation,
Textbook ‘disaster capitalism’ – major opportunities for shorting the pound and buying up state and private assets cheap as the economy tanks.
I can see it coming and Im not even an anti-capitalist…
I wouldn’t be so sure about the above chant.
There is already a campaign against foreign aid in a so called newspaper.
Some people already are suspicious of “that man down the road who claims disability allowance but is able to cut his grass”
Or “her next door who has kids for benefits”
They either don’t care that corporate welfare and tax shenanigans cost the country much more than “those people” ever will.
I can see them being bought off with a penny off income tax.
Jim Round says:
“….Some people already are suspicious of “that man down the road who claims disability allowance but is able to cut his grass”
Or “her next door who has kids for benefits”….”
Classic divide and rule. It’s ‘a piece of piss’ like taking candy from babies. Works every time.
If the Demos is stupid and ill-educated you almost need not bother to pretend to be other than an elite plutocracy.
One could despair.
Yes, you could despair, but despite all of the UK’S faults, people still want to come here, eve after the referendum.
The immigration figures still show that.
So true. People are so against the poor they can’t stop demonising them while the rich cheat them blind.
Well Richard, I don’t imagine anyone who visits this blog is in any doubt that this white paper is anything other than a purely political publication put together in a hopeless attempt to meet the impossible aims of leaving the EU but, errrr, not really leaving it because May (whatever we may think of her) knows perfectly well the economic damage leaving the EU will cause ; Christ knows enough senior business people have told her so.
Obviously, the last paragraph is exactly what many of the Brexit hardliners are aiming for; the libertarian fantasy of a low tax, low regulation ultra Thatcherite European Singapore.
Anyhow, since it’s beeb torn to pieces by all sides in the Brexit debate already it’s probably irrelevant anyway. How long is May going to survive at all?
Will we survive it all?
There have been a number of contributors over many months (for as long as I’ve been here) expressing the suspicion that a major but unspoken, underlying motivation for Brexit is precisely because of this desire to be an offshore tax haven (whilst of course pretending not to be).
I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess just how crucial a driver for Brexit this has been amongst the wealthy individuals and corporations that would be the beneficiaries. There’s little advantage to be gained by ‘ordinary’ citizens for such arrangements, hence the focus on bogus claims of immigration and money which is being diverted from domestic public services to the ‘EU coffers’; along with the jingoistic control and sovereignty rhetoric which plays well with sections of the populace.
Re State Aid the claim that UK state aid is at a low level seems to me to be risible given that so much of government functions is outsourced to the private sector. This is playing with numbers and massaging of figures. Add, for example the likes of the Carillion bailout and others where profits have been taken and left behind the bill for pensions liabilities and other creditors to be ‘State Aided’ retrospectively and the figures are clearly a meaningless tissue of fabrication.
No doubt other European nations play fast and lose with their government books in similar fashion or using cunning variations.
The case for (or against) Brexit, and likewise for or against Scottish independence, has bugger-all to do with numbers on balance sheets. Figures as presented reflect no sort of reality, beyond political expediency masquerading as ‘verifiable facts’.
Can somebody remind me the answer to ‘How many angels can balance on the head of a pin’ ?
@ Andy Crow
“Can somebody remind me the answer to ‘How many angels can balance on the head of a pin’?”
Depends on how under-educated a country’s citizens and politicians are to attempt such a task. Obviously in the UK as Brexit and support for Austerity cuts reveals a great many!
Just a couple of points:
– I don’t think outsourcing meets the state aid definition described here, given the tendering rules etc.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/state-aid
– Pension fund liabilities are picked up by the Pension Protection Fund which is funded by the pensions industry & currently has around £28bn of investments to cover these issues.
J A Rank says:
“— I don’t think outsourcing meets the state aid definition described here, given the tendering rules etc….”
I think that rather confirms my suspicions.
Richard
thanks. I gave up up on the white paper after about half an hour ( http://www.progressivepulse.org/brexit/the-white-paper-and-two-tribes ). but this confirms my suspicions that one of the driving forces towards Brexit from the “elite” was the continuance or even enhancement of tax haven status
I agree
And there I was thinking that the ‘elite’ were those dreadful ‘liberal’ remainers, from whom the brave Brexiters were going to rescue the oppressed left-behind.
Both words have become meaningless, used by different people as disparaging terms for whomever they think has power they ought to have.
How people can see the likes of Farage, Johnson and Rees-Mogg as anything other than an massively privileged, ultra ‘elite’ baffles me.
Anna Soubrey sees them as an alite
Check out her speech yesterday
Where do you stand on state aid?
The choices are 1) accept the EU rules as they are (whether by staying in, or leaving and accepting them via a deal) or 2) hard Brexit.
Hard to seeing the EU agreeing to any kind of deal where there is a risk of a UK government, current or future, distorting markets with state resources. They won’t agree to it.
If the left want to increase distorting aid, then they have to go for a hard Brexit. There is a hard left case for Hard Brexit, and this is one of the main reasons.
But note there is ample we could still do within EU rules
And the reality is that the next Global Financial Crisis will rewrite all rules
Sorry, my mistake but I got the incorrect impression that you thought the level of state aid was too high, and that a future non-Tory government would push it higher.
Hard to see the EU being overly concerned about the UK’s current state aid levels staying where they are. They’d be more concerned if they went up (but again, not overly bothered if within the rules).
I don’t see state aid being an area where the parties will fall out while the Tories are negotiating. Might be different if Corbyn was on the other side – then it could become a bunfight.
I think it unlikely state aid will be a game breaker
It should be higher than at present
Dom S says:
“….If the left want to increase distorting aid, then they have to go for a hard Brexit….”
I don’t accept this as a rationale; not for one moment. One just needs to hire different bean-counters and brief them to suit one’s purposes and intentions.
When in the treaty of Rome…….
Quite – state aid is the ‘tax avoidance’ for the state.
Same mindset – let’s pay smart lawyers to find loopholes.
I’m told on the grapevine that the UK is one of the better behaved, compared to other countries.
I once met an accountant in Great Yarmouth who said he was a sort of tax haven.
Isn’t this the white paper we sent to the EU last week stating our position in the negotiating process and what outcomes we expect? The EU are meeting this Friday to discuss and respond to the paper as the way forward. If neither side of the debate here agree with it, does it mean that the EU are wasting their time and should wait for another version later? The media in this country are concentrating on the UK debate between the for/against completely forgetting the EU may well say no anyway.
I think the EU will say now, because it is nonsense
Richard – a request; any suggestions for the best summary of the white paper youve seen?
Try this
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/07/12/if-this-is-all-the-government-has-for-its-brexit-white-paper
Thanks Richard
I don’t know why anyone is surprised that the Tory Brexiteer ‘élite’ (as opposed to the misled ‘blue-collar’ brigade) would be undermining any deal other than a ‘no deal’. Their agenda has always been unadulterated Ayn Rand-inspired Neoliberalism, with close ties to their US counterparts via the many think-tanks and associations such as Liam Fox’s ‘The Atlantic Bridge’.
While any suggestions other than those expressed in the MSM are considered ‘conspiracies’, I suggest that the chaos surrounding ‘Brexit’ is not entirely the result of ministerial incompetence. There may well be another agenda running in the background whereby the chaos is perhaps not overtly ‘manufactured’ but exploited to the point of collapse; then these arch-Brexiteers identify the failure of government, propose their solution to restore order in the ‘public interest’ and seek power on that basis. Furthermore, who knows what rôle Trump might be playing in this scenario … he could be complicit or simply a pawn of the Deep State.
This recent piece in Naked Capitalism articulates one possibility that I find credible – https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/07/trumps-visit-marks-start-shock-doctrine-brexit.html.
‘Tax Haven Britain’ would certainly be high on their agenda. As would an assault on the NHS and our agriculture. These powerful political puppeteers are a direct threat to our democracy and socio-economic well-being. The danger is we rarely know until it’s too late. I’m deeply concerned.
We have every reason to be worried
Brexit is now shock doctrine – because there is no doctrine left that can win democratic support in parliament
Having had a quick look all I can say is that I am absolutely speechless by the vacuity of the White Paper.
If the Labour party’s election manifesto under Michael Foot was the ‘longest suicide note in history’ then May has come up with the longest obituary for serious politics in this country. I mean honestly this is the politics of the madhouse. It’s not even politics. The White Paper should be on sale in the Fantasy isle at WH Smith and Waterstones.
How could the EU takes us seriously? They are bound to chuck this back at us and then May will blame them for being intractable and………..oh dear. It does not bode well.
We can only hope that when it unravels (and the consequences become real) the finger will be pointed.
But you know, I walked into the centre of the town where I work today – and the roads are in a right state; I saw tents in the undergrowth of a local park; a homeless man asking for money to buy water; litter all over the place, worn out infrastructure, closed retail units and pubs. My meeting was equally depressing – the Council selling off assets to the private sector for money to make up with loss of support grant from Westminster; land and buildings for sale and not to be used for affordable housing; stuff slowing down because they are haemorrhaging staff and budgets.
And I thought – Haven’t we suffered enough? And then there is still BREXIT to deal with? Your description of it as ‘shock doctrine’ is apt.
It is May and her party (and a good few in Labour too) and the billionaire BREXIT supporters who need the shock treatment. Not the folk of this country.
Anna Soubry shocked it to them: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44854597 (scroll down a bit) Why is she a Tory?
And yet (the disgraced) Liam Fox was allowed to waffle on this morning by John Humphries, with only the feeblest and superficial analysis by Kuensberg. The obvious flaws in the white paper, let alone with the amendments seem to escape the BBC. It is part of the problem.
Then ask yourself why Hoey, Field and Stringer voted with the Hard Brexiters.
But continue to be tolerated by the Labour Party…
Robin, two points:
1) Because Hoey, Stringer and Field are traitors, in two senses of the word. Traitors to truth, logic, reason and decency in their rejection of all reasoned argument on this issue. And traitors to the UK because by supporting the hard Brexit pushed by right wing nationalists they betray the ordinary people of Britain who will suffer if this madness occurs.
2) Good point, why does Labour tolerate these 3 wretches?
Incidentally, Hoey, who has accused (like many other of the Brexit fanatics) the civil service of treachery is also a monstrous hypocrite.
Thanks John D – excellent polemic to complement the Ian Dunt piece that Richard recommended. We are not getting anything like this from the BBC, let Albert the mass media.
Thanks John D – excellent polemic to complement the Ian Dunt piece that Richard recommended. We are not getting anything like this from the BBC, let alone the mass media.
It was always the case that the key drivers for Leave were: (a) the hard right who object to all these petty regulation getting in the way of their basic human right to mug the many for the benefit of the few and (b) Momentum and associate Trots on the hard left who see the EU as an evil, capitalist-imperialist obstruction to their building a socialist nirvana in our green and pleasant land. It seems pretty obvious to me that they now recognise each other as allies.
Sprinkle gently with a few deluded traditionalists who’ve been miss-sold a sepia image of a past that never was and there you have it. Hard Brexit it is.
It’s just a shame I don’t have the ancestry to qualify for an EU passport because I value my freedom of movement. I guess I’ll just end up as one of those starving Brits plucked from the Channel by compassionate Europeans and then pushed from one Member State to another by populist politicians who won’t let me in.
Absolutely mad. She spent 2 years to get to the white paper and tonight she whipped the party to vote AGAINST it and for the hard right amendments. Chaos.
…and I am even more convinced that they are the ones pulling the strings. Some of them very discreetly – EU tax oversight was getting too close for comfort. But it will never be said in public. Poor old electors……was DUPed.
Anthony Barnett in “The Lure of Greatness” discussed what dare not speak its name: British/English Nationalism as an important factor in the political drive for Brexit. The “divisive nationalist” as Mrs May calls the SNP are in fact in her own party and in her own England, but because it is English/British nationalism then it’s ok and goes unrecognised. It’s a dangerous, and ignored factor, in combination with conceits of exceptionalism, superiority and entitlement. Johnson and several others are the embodiment of this nationalism. They should have been thrown out of the party.
Unfortunately the destructiveness of this kind of nationalism will never gain any traction in the media as almost all of them are in it together.
G Hewitt. Why is Anna Soubry a Tory? Look at her voting record.
Mr Hewitt,
The problem for Anne Soubry MP is that the Conservative Remainers are not well organised, and are brittle. The Hard Brexit lobby are ruthless; Dominic Grieve’s little rebellion was ‘managed’ by Downing Street; for ptrecisely nothing.
More generally, I think you are on a sound track. I wrote a blog on Bella Caledonia a few days ago ‘What is the Plan? The Plan is to have no Plan’. I ended with this observation, which – if you will indulge me – is on similar lines to your own:
Brexit is not a new idea for Britain, indeed it is the core faith of British exceptionalism; and within it is the very old ideology of British ‘reason of state’ politics. Beside this, Hobbesian statecraft was benign. We seem unable to rid ourselves of the ideological anachronism of representing Europe as the permanent, imminent reification of ‘Universal Monarchy’; itself a cloak for something enduring and dangerous: British geopolitical hubris. Brexit means Brexit. Let me take just one example of what Brexit means Brexit entails. It implies not just leaving the EU, but undermining it, for that is what inevitably follows: the seductive idea that there is an alternative now open for European states, to membership of the EU. Be in no doubt. Britain will encourage others to follow where Britain leads, directly or indirectly; officially or unofficially. Brexit implies, indeed desires a return to a divided Europe, but without stating the ‘end-game’ for all to see; in which Britain can return to a leading role in ‘Balance of Power ‘politics, playing one state’s interests off against another. We have had a dry run of this with Brexit, in Britain’s attempts to divide the 27 among themselves, in British negotiating interests — and so far failed. The tragedy of this is that the policy is precisely the same British approach to international politics in Europe that Britain pursued for the previous two hundred years; which ended so catastrophically for everyone in the 20th century, in two World Wars. Never again. Lest we forget. Lest we forget? It is 2018; and we have already forgotten.
You understand my fear
Thank you John S – well put.
How this looks from European perspective is very rarely if ever heard in the UK. At a time of threats both from the East and from Trump in the West as well as internal challenges, the UK is proving to be a disruptive, untrustworthy and incompetent partner, lost in internal divisions and nostalgic fantasies. It’s power – economic, political and military – is much diminished and will shrink further. It’s pandering to Trump with his expressed loathing of the EU is perhaps the final, large nail in the coffin. Deeply offensive
Contrary to expressed Brexiter fantasies, Europe will survive the UKs departure and is already preparing for it – unlike the UK. Even the loss of budget contributions is tiny compared to the size of the other economies – the UKs contributions were after all tiny compared to the UKs economy. The import/export impact on individual European economies is small compared the impact on the UK – the services Impact on UK will be substantial. Businesses will move to Europe as that is the only sensible thing for them to do. They already are, albeit quietly and discretely (I wish it were noisier).
The EU countries will be free to tackle the important challenges without the constraint of the whinging Brits. And for the Left, a reminder that it’s been the UK that has been the most neo-liberal in its influence on the EU. Meanwhile the UK can slide back to what it was before it joined – the poor man of Europe, for those of us old enough to remember.
Exactly John. Peple like Soubry and Grieve are wasting their time trying to be reasonable in the face of the fanaticism of the hardliners. If they are serious, they have to be as ruthless as their opponents. And if the government is taken hostage by the fanatics, be prepared to put the interests of the country before the wretched Tory party, and side with the opposition, even if that means forcing another general election.
Excellent summary.
Brexit may be a small part of a bigger picture … https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375
Agreed
@Bob, thanks, that was an eyeopening article, the likes of which we will never see in our media.
The thing is, you would have thought that with the advent of the internet the actual facts should be widely known to counter this propaganda/misinformation (sometimes by omission) but yet we seem to be heading over the cliff lemming-like (with apologies to lemmings who do not actually throw themselves off cliffs apparently).
Brexit has various drivers that all dovetail together.
* Bannon, who crafted Cambridge Analytica to install Trump, driven by white supremacy.
* Russia and other interests, driven by dislike of the EU clamping down on climate change and neutering untapped fossil fuel reserves.
* HNW individuals and business, driven by dislike of the EU clamping down on tax avoidance and tax havens.
* Our own MPs, such as Hannan and Fox who have close links to Republican think tanks, driven by the idea of deregulated unrestricted free markets and a US trade deal.
My main concern is that the UK will be asset stripped, the NHS will be gone and we’ll never get it back.
My second concern, but starting to take over more, is that rise of the far right, civil unrest, especially once Brexit goes through and there is a massive wave of discontent as Brexit only delivers for the real elites.
An excellent article and fascinating replies.
I worry that, as Paul says that the civil unrest and rise of the extreme right after the catastrophic reality of Brexit hits home, may well achieve a tidal wave of support. I suspect that that like the “Stab in the back” lie, perpetuated by the fascists in Germany in the 20s and 30s, the very people who will benefit from the fiasco will lay the blame on the “Remain” vote and insist that the programme was derailed by cowardly elites who attempted to subvert the ‘noble’ cause. Mogg, Duncan Smith, Redwood and their like will continue to insist that theirs was the one true way, encouraging hatred of those who warned against the carefully hidden agenda, while they enjoy the enormous profits accrued from their machinations..
..or maybe I’m just a silly old paranoid.
I fear you’re right
“I worry that, as Paul says that the civil unrest and rise of the extreme right after the catastrophic reality of Brexit hits home, ”
Pray for a cool wet August.
No, I don’t think you’re being paranoid at all. If the lying, law breaking conpersons behind this get their crazy ‘hard Brexit’, and disaster follows, you can bet they’ll try to pin the blame on their opponents…..or if that doesn’t work, anybody and everybody else.
Your analogy with the behaviour of the Nazis is correct; I’ve long thought the behaviour of the anti EU campaigners resembles that of the Nazis: utterly cynical in exploiting peoples’ anger and fears, prepared to lie shamelessly to get their way, pursuing a hidden agenda (in this case, of free market fundamentalism) whilst hiding behind faux patriotic nonsense like ‘sovereignty’.
And just as the Nazis were helped by the weakness and mistakes of their opponents, so are this lot. Corbyn’s feeble opposition to Brexit is a betrayal of progressive politics, and as for those Labour MP’s who back a hard Brexit……….words fail me.
I’m sorry to say this to those of you who have kids, but I’m bloody glad I don’t have any now, because even ignoring the horror of Trump/Putin, unless our politicians get a grip and stop the current madness, what kind of future have they got?
My concern too – my kids and now my grandkids.
That said, my sense is that the kids who came of age during the New Labour era (like mine…) had very little to campaign and protest about, Iraq apart. Education, health employment et al were all massively improved after the disasters of the Thatcher/Major years, even if some of us could see the potential impact of PFIs and lax finance regulation. That perhaps led to a generation who are relatively apathetic politically (despite my efforts to stir my own up) and are only slowly waking up.
Its anecdotal evidence I know, but in discussion with a college lecturer (at the Trump march of all places), he confirmed my hunch/hope that the generation coming through college now are much more active. It might just be about complaining about student loans or not being able to afford a house, but they are at least asking the questions. Be interested to know if others are seeing the same pattern
I have decidedly active children
If I dismiss them as anomalies I can’t dismiss the fact that their friends seem more aware than I expected
Ive little doubt that is what will happen. They’ve been doing the groundwork for years through their allies in the print media and more recently social media. Carole Cadwalladr and James Patrick have been writing about this for some years, much to the extreme irritation and anger of the right. They need support.
See also Adam Curtis’s Hypernromalisation – he was way ahead of the pack