Brexit: Now What? Part III

[ddt]

The EU won't discuss trade (what we want) till we agree to pay a sum acceptable to them.

Are you sour that the EU holds all the cards in this poker game?

They've carefully avoided talking about what is legally required and instead talk about moral obligations and such. Both the House of Lords and the European court have said that such payments are not legally required.

You can back that claim up with, you no, actual quotes?

BTW, (1) what "European court", there is no court that goes by that name, and (2) I don't care a whit what the Lords say, they're not a court (anymore, not since 2009).

I agree with you that we'll have to pay to get what we want. What we can't do is agree to pay an unspecified sum before the EU will even begin to talk about what we want. That's why the negotiations are currently stalled.

The sum is not "unspecified", the EU has laid out its position in its papers and you can find the sums in the EU's accounting.

By agreeing to continue payments during the transition period, which will go some way to filling the EU's requirement for money in the period to 2021, May is hoping to unlock the negotiations. If negotiations are unlocked by the EU we can negotiate what we'll get in return for any "divorce bill" payments. But I expect that the EU will continue to stall the negotiations in the hope that we'll sign a blank post-dated cheque.

Signing a blank cheque is something that May might be stupid and desperate enough to do, but there are some members of her cabinet that won't stand for it, and such an action would doubtless trigger a leadership challenge.

Again, no-one is asking to sign a blank cheque. The negotiations are locked because the UK negotiator have no frikking clue what they're talking about or what their position should be. And I'm confident that the EU will demand significant progress on the divorce bill before the reality of a transition period will be discussed.

And what May has offered is a small beginning. There's still a huge divorce bill to discuss.

ETA: as I understand, the only thing May has offered to pay are the obligations arising directly from the current budget period.

 

[jimbob]

Meanwhile the Independent quoted this tweet:

I'm going to cancel Netflix and negotiate with each film producer separately, to get the best deal for me and my family #Brexit

 

[ceptimus]

The sum is not "unspecified", the EU has laid out its position in its papers and you can find the sums in the EU's accounting.

Okay then, what is the sum in Euros? Hint: you won't be able to find out as no one knows.

 

[ceptimus]

If the sum to be paid is a legal requirement, and there's a legally agreed way of working out what the total is, then there's nothing to negotiate. The UK will, of course, abide by the law.

So why are the EU stalling negotiations until the payment is agreed? Obviously the matter isn't as clear as most posters in this thread would like to believe.

 

[GnaGnaMan]

Whatever her speech tried to achieve, it showed to the EU that the UK is not ready at all - the clock is indeed ticking.

It was pitiful. We want to leave the party but, can we have two years more please?

The EU can now decide the terms even more.

A sad farce for the UK.

The "implementation period" looks to me like part of a good compromise. The UK stays until the end of the current financial cycle and pays down its commitments. That still leaves the pensions and such, of course. But it does allow the UK to pay down the "divorce bill" without being seen to do so.

 

[GnaGnaMan]

If the sum to be paid is a legal requirement, and there's a legally agreed way of working out what the total is, then there's nothing to negotiate. The UK will, of course, abide by the law.

Normal adults are able to agree without having to go to court all the time. The system would break down if that wasn't the case.

Apart from that, there are a number of good reasons why neither side is interested in going to court. For one, that solution is not politically palatable in the UK.
The EU, otoh, will not just want what it is legally owed but what it is morally owed. You're not going to continue making deals with someone who screwed you over, just because you were legally screwed over.

 

[ddt]

If the sum to be paid is a legal requirement, and there's a legally agreed way of working out what the total is, then there's nothing to negotiate.

You've never bickered with a customer over a bill and gave them a discount so they would pay?

The UK will, of course, abide by the law.

The UK only paid off Lend-Lease in 2006.

So why are the EU stalling negotiations until the payment is agreed? Obviously the matter isn't as clear as most posters in this thread would like to believe.

Clarity with a signature under a document with a clear number - and preferably actual payment - is much preferred over years of wrangling in the courts.

Besides, are you somehow expecting the EU to open new negotiations with the UK about the future when the current agreement has not been closed?

Have you ever personally been in the position to have to collect invoices? I have, and it's no fun.

 

[jimbob]

As May repeated again in Florence, "No deal is better than a bad deal"

You can't say that no deal will be so damaging that it's worse than the possible damage from any other conceivable deal - at least you can say that, but it would be an absurd position to take on a critical thinking forum.

In any case, my point is that the present negotiations are achieving nothing whatsoever other than wasting time and money. No deal will be the inevitable result of such negotiations. I said that I would walk away from such time-wasting negotiations but be prepared to return to negotiations if and when the EU remove their absurd preconditions.

It is theoretically possible to think of a worse deal than no deal. In practice, however this is not the case.


The UK is a trading nation. Its largest trading partner is the rest of the EU. The UK makes up a significant fraction of the EU's trade, more with countries like Ireland, than say Italy.


It would be theoretically possible to agree a deal where the UK gets nothing and gives everything away. Even David Davis isn't *quite* that stupid, though... I think.

 

[Craig B]

There are already loads of such immigrants in the UK, including London. There are plenty of illegal ones too from Afghanistan, African countries, and so on. They come over by stowing away on lorries and also by small boats crossing the channel or other sea and dropping them off on beaches away from customs facilities.

So the Irish border may be one easy route for them to get as far as Belfast or Derry, but they'll mostly want to get to England which will involve purchasing tickets for planes or ferries where they may be discovered - the other routes may still be easier for them.

So you imagine that May's Orange chums are going to be happy about their part of the U.K. getting filled up with weird foreigners, mainly from Catholic countries, by the way; while enhanced security measures prevent Loyal True Orange citizens travelling freely to other parts of the Kingdom without having their citizenship and right of residence checked. I don't think they'll be keen on that.

 

[Information Analyst]

FTFY.

ETA: and yes, that is what ceptimus is saying.

On the contrary, I did mean EU, not EEA, i.e. the idea that the UK would get access to the single market on "better" terms than Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland.

 

[Information Analyst]

Obviously it should, and obviously it will. Norway has different access terms to Switzerland, and both of those have different access than Iceland.

Each country has negotiated its own terms of access. The UK should get better terms than any other country because:

A) It's bigger, and

So?

B) Because it's an existing member of the EU and therefore 100% compliant with all EU laws, regulations and rules, it follows that on the day of leaving, it will already be in full 100% compliance with all the necessary regulations.

Then it follows that the UK must continue to be compliant with those laws, regulations and rules as long as it wishes to continue trading with the EU. I thought you lot didn't like all those "EU laws, regulations and rules." It also follows that outside the EU the UK will have no say or influence on how those "EU laws, regulations and rules" evolve. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense...

 

[Information Analyst]

A better analogy is a divorce: everyone keeps talking about, "the divorce bill." When a marriage partner petitions for divorce and walks away from the marriage home, they don't give up their share of the financial value of that home.

If the home is rented, the departing party doesn't get their share of the rent refunded.

 

[ceptimus]

So?


Then it follows that the UK must continue to be compliant with those laws, regulations and rules as long as it wishes to continue trading with the EU. I thought you lot didn't like all those "EU laws, regulations and rules." It also follows that outside the EU the UK will have no say or influence on how those "EU laws, regulations and rules" evolve. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense...

You say, "Then it follows..." But it doesn't follow. By your logic whenever, say, the USA changes its laws or regulations then every country that has a trade agreement with the USA would also have to change its own laws to match. That sometimes does happen of course, but not always. And, of course, the EU already manages to maintain trade agreements with countries such as Canada and those trade agreements don't fall apart when either the EU or Canada change their regulations.

If Canada can maintain a trade deal with the EU, why won't the UK be able to do the same? Hint: it will.

 

[ceptimus]

If the home is rented, the departing party doesn't get their share of the rent refunded.

Just clarify for me, in your stretched analogy, from whom is the EU renting its home?

 

[Strawberry]

You say, "Then it follows..." But it doesn't follow. By your logic whenever, say, the USA changes its laws or regulations then every country that has a trade agreement with the USA would also have to change its own laws to match. That sometimes does happen of course, but not always. And, of course, the EU already manages to maintain trade agreements with countries such as Canada and those trade agreements don't fall apart when either the EU or Canada change their regulations.

If Canada can maintain a trade deal with the EU, why won't the UK be able to do the same? Hint: it will.

You can have a CETA type trade deal with the EU, but that's it. And that's not a better deal than Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein which seemed to be what you wanted.

And I notice that, like all Brexiters, you have no idea what to do about the Irish border.

 

[Garrison]

I agree with you that we'll have to pay to get what we want. What we can't do is agree to pay an unspecified sum before the EU will even begin to talk about what we want.

Can't? Perhaps you should have a word with Theresa May who has done exactly that in her desperate attempt to buy more time for chronically inept team to come up with an actual negotiating strategy.

 

[jimbob]

You can have a CETA type trade deal with the EU, but that's it. And that's not a better deal than Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein which seemed to be what you wanted.

And I notice that, like all Brexiters, you have no idea what to do about the Irish border.

To be fair, the Irish border is simply the most pointed of the many issues which the Brexiteers, have no realistic idea on - and that includes the government.

 

[ceptimus]

Can't? Perhaps you should have a word with Theresa May who has done exactly that in her desperate attempt to buy more time for chronically inept team to come up with an actual negotiating strategy.

This is incorrect. What May has offered is to buy two years extra EU membership* at the current rate of nine billion Euros per year. So it's not a blank cheque and we know what we'll get in return. It remains to be seen whether the EU will accept her offer.

*Not actually members but nothing will change other than we won't have any MEPs or other political representation.

 

[Garrison]

*Not actually members but nothing will change other than we won't have any MEPs or other political representation.

So in other words keep paying for an extra 2 years on substantially worse terms than currently. And I notice you keep ducking the fact that the reason for this is the inability of May and co. to come up with a negotiating position.

 

[ceptimus]

Wrong again. I've repeatedly explained that the reason negotiations are stalled is due to unreasonable EU preconditions. Our negotiating position is that we can't agree to pay until we've negotiated what we'll get in return - and the EU preconditions don't allow that. I've further explained that I don't believe the EU are currently prepared to negotiate in good faith and therefore I think we should walk away from the farcical "negotiations".