I am in very many ways surprised that the EU is still negotiating Brexit.
Last December the only thing that has ever been agreed during these negotiations - the Northern Ireland backstop - was put in place. It was the condition for moving on to trade talks. And now the UK wants to renege on that agreement.
I can only conclude that the EU's persistence does mean that they want a deal. It would be hard to think anything else in the light of the UK's appalling lack of negotiating skill and goodwill. There are wiser heads beyond these shores. But it does not mean anyone will get near an outcome now, in my opinion. The realisation that the wreckers in the UK cabinet are now intent on destruction must dawn on everyone soon. And it seems that there is nothing and no one to stop them.
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Events. Our only hope is a chain of events that sweeps this disastrous government out of power. The potential is there. Any number of things could light the touchpaper. It would be helpful if the opposition could bring itself to hold the lighter.
Yup, another snap election is needed. I understand the EU are prepared for this and have been speaking with Corbyn accordingly. If not, well, Shock Doctrine it is then. The Disaster Capitalists will have their way.
It’s very surprising to find someone, who, likes yourself understands MMT but at the same time is pro EU. Why? The current structure of the EU, after its move to a common currency, is clearly not viable. The thinking of the EU PTB that they can simply impose rules and the unworkable should somehow then work. There’s no MMT advocate who would say otherwise. So why wouldn’t we want to put as much administrative distance as possible between us and the failing EU?
I previously (on a now closed thread) made the point that the EU consisted of countries which were either economically depressed or highly mercantilistic. They aren’t good trading partners. The resultant trade deficit has given us a debt problem. It’s not a Government debt problem, its a private sector debt problem. I’m sure you are perfectly well aware of that so I didn’t quite follow your remark about my not understanding Government debt.
The EU will not require a common currency
Why make stuff up?
And what do you propose instead? Economic mayhem and neoliberal wilderness?
I am a realist.
I agree that ‘Europe’ or whatever we want to call it doesn’t need a common currency. Europe would be better off with separate floating currencies. One currency per government. However, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but those who have set up what is known as the European Union, which came into being about the same time as the introduction of the Maastricht Treaty obviously don’t agree. They’ve named the common currency as the euro.
They are intent on having all countries use it, or at least stick to SGP rules. So far they’ve got the major economies signed up. 19 countries in all.
I’m not making anything up!
Of course we all know that the UK is the exception and we don’t use it. But the fall out from the eurozone cannot be contained within eurozone borders as the result of the UK referendum showed. If it had all been working well across the channel there would have been an easy win for Remain.
With respect, if you think everything is fixed for ever there is no point in having political debate, is there?
It isn’t, so there is
Pretending otherwise is just scaremongering
So Richard – I presume being pro EU and anti the Euro, you too advocate for floating exchange rates per country?
Yes
I always have
Fantastic!!! Why do I feel you have always countered this when I have made the suggestion?..You see the EU becoming more like the common market in an ideal world?
Countered what?
Never in my life have I countered floating exchange rates
And I have always been wholly opposed to the euro
“It’s very surprising to find someone, who, likes yourself understands MMT but at the same time is pro EU. ”
Not surprising. There are many, including myself. MMT would suggest not joining the Eurozone (EZ) unless they implement full fiscal integration. But the UK is not in the EZ. Outside there are no real restriction on what a sovereign nation can do. Being in the EU and outside the EZ is the best of both worlds.
Exactly
It is not necessarily that one ‘is pro – EU’ Martin.
Rather it is being pro about the other stuff like trade and peace that one associates with the EU that many of us are worried about losing for no good reason (consider the lies that have been told and the underlying dishonesty behind those lies and the result of the referendum).
The EU – as imperfect as it is – provides a form of stability. We are walking away from that stability towards what exactly?
Peter Martin says:
“It’s very surprising to find someone, who, like[] yourself understands MMT but at the same time is pro EU. Why? ”
The UK is not part of the Eurozone, so where’s the conflict ?
“Where’s the conflict?”
It is as explained in the last paragraph of my previous comment.
And it’s not a real conflict
MMT does not define the EU. What defines the EU? Three little words.
Lest we forget.
Very good
Unfortunately you are correct Richard. However in certain parts of the press this attitude would be called ‘standing up to the EuroBullies’ or somesuch juvenile phrase. In my area we had the misfortune to host Farage and his group with their open top bus labeled ‘Leave means Leave’ but I never saw anyone on it. Channel4 news did a spot about that last night.
Very depressing situation and I have resigned myself to awaiting events to unfold as I have no power nor influence (other than my referendum vote of course).
“And it seems that there is nothing and no one to stop them.”
I am asking myself – What would the electorate of France be doing if the wishes of 48% of them were being ignored/trampled like this?
I think the cobbles would be flying
There is a march in London weekend folks.
Get yourselves along!
You’d be seeing a stand off in the streets, you know the style…John Wayne supporters(Brexiteers) versus James Stewart ones (Remainers).
Every weekend.
The CRS would be banging their truncheons on their shields…the tear gas would be flowing freely through the underground vents…ah, good times!
The original backstop was that NI would basically remain in the EU and the rest of the Uk would leave, whether or not our government understood that is a big question as subsequent dialog seemed to suggest they didn’t. at this point may described the backstop as “the default, default position, but not the default position”!
Since that point, the ERG and DUP insisted on amending legislation to say that the UK and NI cannot be in different customs unions to each other, thus making the original backstop illegal under uk law, which was pointed out to them at the time. The government now seems to have proposed an arrangement where the entire uk, rather than just NI, remains in a customs union, however the EU says that will take too long to setup, so they want just NI to start off, but that’s illegal under uk law (which of course can be amended)
Given the discussion with the DUP at the time this seems to have been wholly understood
And now reneged upon
I’m not sure how you can say ‘reneged upon’. The negotiators simply don’t have the authority to create borders within the UK. That would have to be part of a package to be approved by Parliament.
As there isn’t much chance of this Parliament approving anything like that, they are doing the right thing to rule it out. There’s no point wasting everyone’s time by pretending otherwise.
There are borders in the UK
There are different laws in different UK countries
We even had banning orders
Please stop denying the truth
@ Richard,
When I was at school, we used to have to do comprehension tests. We were required to understand that if we read the sentence “The negotiators simply don’t have the authority to create borders within the UK” that the author wasn’t necessarily saying that there weren’t already some borders in existence. Just that they didn’t the authority to create new ones.
Maybe educational priorities had changed in later years?
Maybe you read do not understand the process of change
All the evidence suggests you have never been anywhere near such a thing
But it is not all bad news…
New unemployment figures released today show that unemployment fell by 47,000 in the three months to August, taking the UK unemployment down to just 4%, and youth unemployment down to its lowest level in history.
Overall, 338,000 new full-time jobs added were added to the UK economy last year.
Wow, the apologists are out this morning aren’t you?
Most of those jobs pay minimum wage, or less
The self employed ones are just guessed at
Nathan says:
“But it is not all bad news…”
And we are supposed to believe the figures on unemployment in the US are meaningful aswell are we ?
Lowest unemployment figures in the US since 1969 they were trumpeting the other day. Why does anybody take these numbers seriously? It seems only to be the financial ‘community’ that does; presumably because they are capable of suspending their disbelief.
Small wonder there is economic chaos brewing when even policy makers are prepared to design policy around fantasy figures.
I’m always surprised at how uninterested in EU goings on are those who profess to be most in support of UK membership. In 2015, as Greece was doing battle with the Troika there was mainly an embarrassed silence. The supposedly progressive left and centre left in Europe stood by and did little more than hand wringing as the Greek government was quickly pulverised and brought to heel.
There’s another, and much bigger crisis, brewing in Italy and we don’t see much discussion in the mainstream. With the possible exception of the Daily Express!
But surely this must be of potential interest to more intelligent readers too! We could apply the lens of MMT thinking to the Italian economy and have some rational discussion. Maybe? Or maybe not?
The lens is being applied
You clearly need to do your reading and stop wasting your time commenting without having done so
I am getting bored….
Peter Martin – agree 100%
Peter –
We could apply the lens of MMT thinking to the Italian economy and have some rational discussion
But Italy isn’t a currency issuer, it uses the Euro. The rules of money creation in MMT simply don’t apply here. What do you think we should be discussing?
Italy seems to be attempting to have its cake and eat it where being in the Eurozone and having its own currency is concerned https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=opera&q=italy+parallel+currency&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Peter Martin says:
“……If it had all been working well across the channel there would have been an easy win for Remain.”
I’m not convinced of that. Certainly not on economic grounds. You know as well as everyone else who visits this site that economics is not something most people understand.
It is incalculable just how many voters outside London (and the other few ‘remain’ areas) were so utterly disgusted with the palpably false narrative of ‘All in it Together’ which Osborne and Cameron were peddling. I think it was a lot.
Cameron’s pre referendum trip across the Channel to renegotiate terms with the EU was a sham which fooled nobody, and there was no reason for Osborne to close down a recovering economy with austerity which hit the regions hardest.
To blame the Brexit leave vote on circumstances in the EU is to completely miss the point of just how inept our governments have been in protecting the UK interest, within the EU, for many years and simply blaming their every failing on the ‘EU Technocrats’.
Decades of false narrative and very bad government at home decided the issue in my opinion.
That Scotland voted overwhelmingly to ‘Remain’ is testament to the extent the devolved Scottish government (SNP Government, that is…Scottish Labour, hopelessly in Westminster’s pocket, were not so good)…….had protected Scotland from the worst excesses of Westminster (mis)rule in the interests of the City and Home Counties and that nebulous entity ‘Middle England’. Other regions of England and Wales had no such protection and took their opportunity to rebel.
The blame for the 2008 financial debacle belongs across all players, in the US, UK and EU. No one came away from that with clean hands.
It is not a safe conclusion to blame the EU for Brexit. We were not sweeping our own stables. The fault if fault there be lies firmly at home. Divorced from the EU we will be able to see more clearly the appalling inadequacy of our home grown politicians I suspect.
Reality needs to be faced. The UK is an idiocracy and consequently unstable because the majority of the electorate have no idea how their monetary system works and support the “government is a household’ dogma. Secondly, this majority has little idea of the reality of global trading where much cheating takes place and very little policing of that cheating.
Why is nobody discussing the hidden motivation behind Brexit – the desire of the City to see the Anti-Tax Abuse Directive repealed?
Because that’s just not true
It is an OECD initiative we are signed up to anyway
Are the OECD likely to be doing any actual enforcement though, in the way that the EU seems to be embracing lately? https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-banks-moneylaundering/eu-banks-face-money-laundering-action-after-malta-latvia-cases-idUKKBN1JN10W
We are already signed up…..
Given that Brexiteers think that the NI border can easily be sorted via technology, why are they so worried about a backstop, that self evidently in their world should never be needed? Could it be they know the technology does not really exist?
It’s been reported that the US is prioritising a trade deal with the UK as soon as we leave the EU – surely that must make the board happy?
No one has ever said so
Trump is an isolationist
TomMcCann says:
“It’s been reported that the US is prioritising a trade deal with the UK as soon as we leave the EU — surely that must make the board happy?”
Board ?
It doesn’t make me happy. Any trade deal with the US puts the NHS in severe jeopardy. Theresa May said as much by her eloquent silence when asked if the NHS would be included in any future US trade deal.
That sounded like a ‘yes’ to me and it would certainly seem to be consistent with the way this government has conducted its business during the past eight years.
England will rue the day it gave away the last and prize piece of the family silver. And for what? A mess of chlorinated pottage?
Saor Alba.
Have a wild stab in the dark what this is all about
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-17/u-s-is-said-to-stall-u-k-bid-to-stay-in-1-7-trillion-market?srnd=premium-europe
We can’t even get into the WTO…..
WTF
‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven’ opined Lucifer, Milton’s fallen angel of Paradise Lost… as has been previously suggested, it appears rather than lose their grip on the country, the Tories are intent on creating a Hell they can reign in.
Not quite not getting into the WTO Richard. This is not getting into the Government Procurement Agreement https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/gproc_e/gpa_committee_e.htm which as members of the EU we are in (so it isn’t really the EU stopping nationalisation etc it’s the WTO).
Thing is with our membership of the EU we have an exemption for the NHS from these rules. It could be that the US is pushing to have that exemption dropped to allow is into the GPA.
“We can’t even get into the WTO….. WTF”
Double ewe tee eff indeed.
But don’t despair. I expect ‘nothings settled’ til it’s all settled’; ……and the rest of the world is queuing up to do deals with us behind the scenes; …..and WTF means WTF and it’ll be alright on the night.
I expect Liam Fox, or somebody equally vague forgot to send off the forms. They love us really ….the UK is indispensable to the world, a nasty Little England which nobody can live without. Hmmmm…..
Will this Brexit nonsense never stop ? Just when we think they’ve plumbed the depths of incompetence and stupidity they sink us a little further into the mire of chaos.
There’s this on the issue of post-Brexit WTO status, and it suggests we’ll carry on as members. I think.
https://www.ictsd.org/opinion/understanding-the-uk
Andy Blatchford says:
“Thing is with our membership of the EU we have an exemption for the NHS from these rules. It could be that the US is pushing to have that exemption dropped to allow is into the GPA.”
If we’re coming out of the EU I don’t see that matters (?)
Theresa May has already said the NHS is up for sale, and Liam Fox has probably drawn up most of the sale particulars which Jeremy *unt hadn’t time to finish before he was called to higher office.