That's a really interesting take on things and I think there may be something in it from the Juncker camp. The counterbalance will be Merkel upon being re-elected, she understands the implication of Brexit ending on WTO terms and it really would be bad for the German car industry in particular. We are after all there biggest export market and a 10% tariff would dent sales more than dieselgate. I have a few friends in the city who are convinced that the EU will eventually reach a workable and reasonable deal that will not adversely impact the EU economy. Personally, I can acept some pain in the short term from a fall out and WTO tariffs. This would change the products we buy and in particular, what we eat. Irish meat exports would be decimated as would UK meat exports to the EU. So, we would instead buy UK meat and in the long run this isn't such a bad thing. The Co-operative now have a policy of only selling UK meat. A good start!
You said I asked And the best you could come back with was You have offered no reasoning why wto would be a nightmare, none. As to state subsidy, buying your own products made in your own country is not a state subsidy, if anything it is reducing your countries carbon footprint. Even in the eu there are customs charges levied against other countries products to make it cheaper for SOME things made in house, that is not a state subsidy either I do wish when trying to act informed duke that you would transfer better from a troll to someone who is just poorly informed. To help you distinguish your usual attempt at misinformation and a bodies rules this may help you https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/scm_e/subs_e.htm However if you want to see what a government subsidy looks like and within the eu to get an unfair advantage, then look no further than airbus
Isn't farming subsidised by the EU to undercut imports, among many others. Individual countries within the EU cannot subsidise there own products but the EU can subsidise at will to close its own markets.
EU farm subsidy under the CAP was aimed ostensibly at fixing retail prices. Really it was an attempt to nationalise European agriculture. It does nothing whatever for food sustainability, consumer choice or environmental stewardship, in fact its been a disaster ecologically. 80% of EU farm subsidy goes to 20% of the biggest and wealthiest industrial producers. It has been a factory-farming charter that has driven small sustainable production to the wall, vastly increased food miles, had terrible consequences for environmental stewardship, reduced choice for consumers and shut producers in developing countries out of the European market with serious social and economic consequences for those countries which in turn have been a contributing factor in the migration crisis. Its hard to think of a more disastrous way of managing food production. It is simply madness to impose pan-continental soviet style centralised control of agriculture.
So let's just get this straight, you have a wide range of people saying that the conservatives are in disarray because they aren't cohesive in what they want from Brexit, even though they all know that it can only work if it's a 'hard Brexit' = leave single market & customs union And yet you have a much wider and more varied wish list coming from Labour with absolutely zero commitment on anything and the most naive 'cake and eat it' requirements of them all https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/24/corbyn-european-single-market-brexit Corbyn knows that the EU would not suit his vision and yet he's not showing the courage to say it outright because he's worried it'll lose him the young voters.
Politics in the UK is in total disarray. It's been run by two parties for too long neither of whom gave any real idea of how working people run their lives, what they want from life. We need a completely new system where politicians are held to account for what they say, if they lie then there is a recourse, a different idea from first past the post and it being funded by the Treasury rather than rich people/companies or institutions buying power.
The Government's difficulties would be solved immediately if Thersa May sacked Philip Hammond and appointed John Redwood as Chancellor. Hammond is behind all the trouble. He would be best off joining Blair's new fantasy party of Euro-imperialist "progressives". It would be a natural home for him. Boris isn't lying down. He's demanded a set of vital red lines to protect our future sovereignty. Hammond won't like them but in a public battle of wills with Johnson, Boris will win. I'm coming to agree with an assessment of Boris made last week by Janet Daly in the Telegraph when she said that he was a very serious person pretending to be frivolous - the exact opposite, she added, of George Osborne.
It's a system steeped in history but totally unsuitable for the modern world and not very democratic. I would go as far as to say It holds this country back. Labour and the Tories always resist change because they know it would be the ending of them or at least in the way they are now. If Brexit ends up making people poorer then I reckon they will both have to change in a big way anyway.
And yet, you continually push to stay in the eu where democracy is seen as a swear word and the top table have never been elected by the people at all. What a kaleidoscope your mind must be
I think the problem is that some people don't really want the truth, they just want everything perfect, everything paid for, without really caring how they get it or how things are costed. Take Corbyn for instance, he's on a wave of support and yet he can't really say what he needs to say because the people blindly supporting him simply don't want to hear it. Half of them don't really remember why they're supporting him, he's just not the Tories and so apparently that makes him ok. Yet he wants Brexit, I think that should be apparent to anyone without rose tinted glasses on. It doesn't matter a bit about all this idealist notion of remaining in the single market and customs union because that isn't going to happen, if we're to actually leave the EU they can't happen. He knows that, he's just not courageous enough to say it, or he's waiting for the Tories to take the blame before him and then he'll play the game of 'I'm picking up the pieces'
The prospect of a transition period of two years, during which we will continue to have access to the single market and the customs union, the price for which will be we continue to pay and be answerable to the ECJ, would be the worst possible option. Without an agreement in place there can be no implementation of new rules during this transition period and I see no reason to believe that the EU will budge on anything, let alone the four freedoms. What will happen at the end of the two years, will there be another extension under the same terms, I cannot see anything changing in their negotiating position over the next 3 1/2 years. Varoufakis was right, the EU will just fuck us about and we will get nowhere. I do not believe they want anything other than a continuation of our contributions and to deny us our ability to influence the direction of travel for the EU. The RosBifs will be sidelined, the Project can move on and we will still be paying our contributions. The EU establishment will have won. Hotel California, "you can check out but you can never leave".
Sent to my MP Theresa May’s Florence speech was an interesting bit of politics, which put the ball in the EU’s court, but did little to move the situation on. Without an agreement to implement, a transitional period serves no purpose whatsoever. The EU is clearly unwilling to compromise over the four freedoms and on very little else it would seem. Therefore what would be the benefit of a transitional agreement other than to kick the proverbial can down the road. The RosBifs would be sidelined, continue to be part of the single market and the customs union and pay our contributions but without any say in the direction of travel for the EU. Meanwhile the uncertainty will continue causing damage to our economy. What will then happen at the end of the transitional agreement, will it be extended for another two years, and another two after that, indefinitely. It will be like Hotel California “you can check out but you can never leave”. Unless “no deal [and we leave to trade under WTO rules] is better than a bad deal” means just that, then the EU juggernaut will continue to roll on, just like Yanis Varoufakis predicted. Without a clear and satisfactory understanding of what exactly will happen at the end of the two year transition period my support for the Conservative Party will end. Having said that I see no prospect of the EU conceding so much as a centimetre on Brexit, therefore it is up to Theresa May and the Conservative Party to step up and come forward with a solution to this problem, I want to know exactly what "Brexit means Brexit" actually means.
