[Archived] Eu Referendum, In Or Out - Looks Like Blackburn Wants Out !

[RibbleValleyRover]

disgraced Fox back in Trade, boring Hammond as Chancellor.

Dickie Davis in charge of Brexit.

I thought May might have some fresh ideas.

Then again BoJo as Foreign Secretary.....bit like having Prince Phillip as race relations officer.

I'm calling it now Baz, a honeytrap in Moscow ends Boris lol

May is either being clever here and leaving the brexiteers to essentially sort out something of their creation or she could come out badly if they screw up and her judgement will then be called into question. Looking at her cabinet it seems more of a 'unite the party' selection rather than picking people based on skills but we shall see.

[Al]

Good point. There is a serious case of the super Blairites being unhappy with someone who is a real leftie leading the party. They can't coast along and just agree with the Conservatives bashing students, the disabled, the unemployed and have to put up with a leader who is actually a strong socialist. They have to actually be some sort of Labour party.

Frankly, this country is ruined, it is dying and the Tory government of 2020 will continue to help their mates get rich and quietly take us back to the 18th Century, or an updated version where we all have to line up and the first 20 in the queue work with no job security, few rights and crap wages. The rest go to the workhouse for below minimum wage where some jumped up ---- can threaten, bully and abuse you because they have that little bit of power.

The process started under Blair, and it is continuing under the Tories who want to sell the country on the cheap so their mates from Eton and their paymasters in big business can get rich and pay no tax as all the money is in Panama.

Can you run fast with the ball? Rovers could do with a left winger but you could be way over the touchline in the crowd.

[tonyoz]

Much rather be allied to America than to France, Germany, Poland etc. and most definitely Turkey.

With Donald or Hillary at the helm? (God help us!)

[Al]

With Donald or Hillary at the helm? (God help us!)

Better than Junker etc.

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

Not 'trying' for anything to be honest. Surprised at some of the decisions, and slightly horrified by the BoJo role - I couldn't think of a worse fit for the role.

Thought she might bring in some young talent to match her earlier speech, instead she appears to have gone for the same old faces, in different positions.

As with all things, I guess we'll see what happens, its not like Labour are in a position to challenge is it.

Johnson will do fine. He was the mayor of London for 8 years, an MP for 7 years and a journalist/political columnist for 14 years, and he won scholarships for his secondary and degree education. He's extremely clever and has bags of political experience.

So he's got a personality (a fun, positive one) and is doesn't mince his words on occasion. Personally can't see anything wrong with that, being too much of a soft touch is just as dangerous in diplomacy as being too straight talking. And the fact that he wrote an insulting poem about that scumbag Erdogan is a huge plus point in my book.

People are constantly getting at politicians for being too boring, and I think many people are sick to the back teeth of the extreme Political Correctness pervasiveness into all aspects of modern life. I'm a big fan of Johnson and am glad he won a place in government after soundly whooping it (and Labour, and the SNP, and the Lib Dems) in the referendum campaign.

[Baz]

Johnson will do fine. He was the mayor of London for 8 years, an MP for 7 years and a journalist/political columnist for 14 years, and he won scholarships for his secondary and degree education. He's extremely clever and has bags of political experience.

So he's got a personality (a fun, positive one) and is doesn't mince his words on occasion. Personally can't see anything wrong with that, being too much of a soft touch is just as dangerous in diplomacy as being too straight talking. And the fact that he wrote an insulting poem about that scumbag Erdogan is a huge plus point in my book.

People are constantly getting at politicians for being too boring, and I think many people are sick to the back teeth of the extreme Political Correctness pervasiveness into all aspects of modern life. I'm a big fan of Johnson and am glad he won a place in government after soundly whooping it (and Labour, and the SNP, and the Lib Dems) in the referendum campaign.

BoJo is amusing/ funny even at times, and at others times he says things that are outrageous and / or insulting. Diplomacy and attention to detail are key skills as Foreign Secretary - I think if you where to ask him what his top skills are, it wouldnt be either of them.

Here are some of the things he has said/written:

...Barack Obama

Johnson faced accusations of “dog whistle racism” less than three months ago after he appeared to suggest Barack Obama had a grudge against Britain because of his “part-Kenyan” heritage.

Hitting out at the US President for intervening in the Brexit debate, Mr Johnson wrote in The Sun about how he had removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval office. He said: “No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision. Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President's ancestral dislike of the British Empire - of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

...Hillary Clinton

In November 2007, Mr Johnson said of Hillary Clinton: “She’s got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital."

... black people

Mr Johnson was forced to apologise back in 2008 after the then-London mayoral candidate was presented with his comments, written five years earlier, about black people.

In a column mocking Tony Blair's globetrotting, he wrote: "What a relief it must be for Blair to get out of England. It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies.” It also mentioned "watermelon smiles" – linking black people to an appetite for watermelons is a racist stereotype, particularly common in the US.

...China

In a 2005 column for the Telegraph entitled “Getting our knickers in a twist over China”, Mr Johnson played down the importance of the world’s most populous nation when compared to that of, for example, “the British Empire”.

“We do not need to fear the Chinese,” he said. “China will not dominate the globe. We do not need to teach babies Mandarin.”

“Compared with the old British Empire, and the new American imperium, Chinese cultural influence is virtually nil, and unlikely to increase.”

...the French

In a speech in 2013, Mr Johnson recalled how he had met with the former French PM Alain Juppe, the mayor of Bordeaux at the time and therefore the representative of 239,517 people – the ninth biggest city in France “I got the ball back very firmly over the net, folks, because I said there were 250,000 French men and women in London and therefore I was the mayor of the sixth biggest French city on earth.”

...the EU and Hitler

The former London Mayor said in May that the EU was an attempt to recreate the Roman Empire’s united Europe

“Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods,” he added.

The incendiary comments sparked an immediate backlash and Donald Tusk, the European Council President, said Mr Johnson had “crossed the boundaries”. But when asked on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show whether it was “abominable” to make the comparison between the Nazi dictator and the European Union, Mr Johnson responded: “I don’t write the headlines.”

...the Turkish president

Amid an international free speech row between Turkey and Germany, Mr Johnson agreed to take part in a poetry competition organised by his former magazine The Spectator.

His limerick reads:

“There was a young fellow from Ankara, Who was a terrific w*nkerer.

“Till he sowed his wild oats, With the help of a goat, But he didn’t even stop to thankera.”

[Steve Moss]

BoJo is amusing/ funny even at times, and at others times he says things that are outrageous and / or insulting. Diplomacy and attention to detail are key skills as Foreign Secretary - I think if you where to ask him what his top skills are, it wouldnt be either of them.

Here are some of the things he has said/written:

...Barack Obama

Johnson faced accusations of “dog whistle racism” less than three months ago after he appeared to suggest Barack Obama had a grudge against Britain because of his “part-Kenyan” heritage.

Hitting out at the US President for intervening in the Brexit debate, Mr Johnson wrote in The Sun about how he had removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval office. He said: “No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision. Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President's ancestral dislike of the British Empire - of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

For what my opinion is worth, Boris Johnson is dead correct with this one. Barack Obama does have a disdain for the British, which he probably justifies to himself because of Britain's colonial past and it's conduct in relation to his father.

For what it's worth, in my opinion the British Empire was one of the bright spots in human history. Yes, there were problems and sometimes abuse. Any human system will have those. But the good far outweighed the bad. I wish you hadn't given it up.

[yoda]

For what my opinion is worth, Boris Johnson is dead correct with this one. Barack Obama does have a disdain for the British, which he probably justifies to himself because of Britain's colonial past and it's conduct in relation to his father.

For what it's worth, in my opinion the British Empire was one of the bright spots in human history. Yes, there were problems and sometimes abuse. Any human system will have those. But the good far outweighed the bad. I wish you hadn't given it up.

I am glad Boris is on our side and not the opposition,

about time Politicians lightened up a bit

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

And Corbyn called Hamas and Hezbollah ours (or maybe just his) friends. Are we to judge politicians entirely on verbal blunders? If that's the case the bloke should never have worked in any form of politics again after referring to terrorists in that manner.

Personally I prefer to judge people in actions rather than words. Johnson isn't an offensive lout, he's a skilled politician with work to do on subtlety. Just as Corbyn isn't a terrorist ally, he's a principled idealist with work to do on connecting with pragmatists.

[Baz]

And Corbyn called Hamas and Hezbollah ours (or maybe just his) friends. Are we to judge politicians entirely on verbal blunders? If that's the case the bloke should never have worked in any form of politics again after referring to terrorists in that manner.

Personally I prefer to judge people in actions rather than words. Johnson isn't an offensive lout, he's a skilled politician with work to do on subtlety. Just as Corbyn isn't a terrorist ally, he's a principled idealist with work to do on connecting with pragmatists.

I think we all judge people somewhat on what they say, and if people continue to make verbal blunders (quite a few of his errors are written too), then I think you have to question the judgement of that person. I'd also question how skilled a politician Boris is, he was completely out-manoeuvred by Gove, he hasnt held a cabinet position before despite being an MP for many years. He's undoubtedly clever - his academic record shows that, but I guess we'll see if that translates- it often doesn't in business.

Corbyn and Hamas - don't know what was said, but it doesn't surprise me, George Galloway has done similar for years, and he and Corbyn shared common ground in the leftist part of Blairs Labour Party for years. I don't know how many times you want me to say I'm anti Corbyn.

[yoda]

Well well,

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde says at an event in Washington...

It did not take the Brexit vote to understand that low growth, rising inequality, and a lack of jobs have combined with social and geopolitical concerns to fuel the rise of populism and inward-looking forces. The greatest challenge we face today is the risk of the world turning its back on global cooperation - the cooperation which has served us all well."

Spoken like a true Bilderberg, which she actually is

[yoda]

"President Obama's administration has started preliminary talks with the UK about how they might pursue a trade deal following Britain’s exit from the EU, according to the Financial Times.

The newspaper quotes Washington’s top trade official, Mike Froman, and says it coincides with a growing push by Republican Brexit supporters for the President to quickly launch talks on a commercial pact.

It also highlights how swiftly the President has backed away from his warnings before the referendum that Britain would be at the "back of the queue" if it voted to leave the EU, the FT reports."

This back of the queue position rocks

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

Another attack. Expect them like clockwork for a long time to come. The exact reason I voted out.

[Husky]

The plan has always been for a lock-down of freedom.

It all sounds a bit apocalyptic sci-fi movie - but that's exactly how the world is these days and it will continue to get worse.

[jim mk2]

BoJo is amusing/ funny even at times, and at others times he says things that are outrageous and / or insulting. Diplomacy and attention to detail are key skills as Foreign Secretary - I think if you where to ask him what his top skills are, it wouldnt be either of them.

Johnson is a discredited clown. After his lies in the Brexit campaign, nobody believes a word he says anymore. May has skilfully set him up for a hilarious fall. Sooner the better. He already sounds like that idiot Hague, who was muttering similar "ra ra Britannia" platitudes when he started out as foreign secretary. Of course it never came to anything. Fortunately he was unable to do much lasting damage as the departmental handlers had him to heel fairly swiftly. They will do the same with this twit.

[philipl]

Probably the reason why Johnson, Davis , Fox and Leadsom (to tell the farmers they are totally @#/? without the EU) are where they are to take the blame for all this....

Everything you need to know about Theresa May’s Brexit nightmare in five minutes

Is… is it over?

The constant news? No, it's very much continuing, but there's now some certainty. We've a new prime minister and Britain's negotiations to leave the EU are top of her agenda.

Yeah, I heard about this. 'Brexit means Brexit', right?

Right, except that that doesn't really mean anything. Leaving the EU is one thing, the actual deal you get is quite another. And Theresa May is about to try and solve arguably the most dangerous puzzle in international relations.

Surely she just needs to TAKE BACK CONTROL?

Right, which most people think means ending freedom of movement. But there's a couple of reasons that doing that would be economically catastrophic. Firstly, EU migrants bring in billions of pounds a year in taxes. Curtailing their numbers in the UK would have a profound effect on our public finances. Secondly, freedom of movement is a requirement of the single market. And leaving the single market would be one of the most radical and economically risky acts this country has ever taken.

I thought Boris said we could stay in the single market and get rid of freedom of movement.

He was either lying or he didn't understand what he was talking about. Probably the first. The single market is a series of rules. His plan was like saying that you're going to visit Paris but not abide by French law. It was nonsense.

But the papers say May will be able to get some kind of deal

It's possible, but not probable. On the plus side, there is precedent. Norway is a member of the single market and it got a few allowances on things like postal services and fishing. People usually refer to this as 'EEA plus' or 'EEA minus', depending on the deal. But there's a downside. Norway still has to abide by the major single market rules, like freedom of movement, but without any say over them.

That doesn't sound like taking back control

It isn't. And anyone who thought they were voting to end freedom of movement might be quite upset to find out that they haven't.

Won't EU leaders offer us something? Maybe some limits on freedom of movement in exchange for some access to the single market.

Well a few member states might want to. France for instance. The French should never be trusted, but they should be trusted now least of all. They might offer Britain concessions on freedom of movement in exchange for an end to bank passports in the City of London.

What are bank passports?

They allow banks in London to sell services on the continent. It's a dangerous deal. It would end freedom of movement, which would harm the UK, and see much of the City up sticks and head to Paris, which would also harm the UK. But politically it would be very attractive. The public might like the sound of a deal which limits immigration and hammers the banks. So May could be tempted to take it. But even if she does, that's just one country. Eastern European countries would be opposed to that type of deal, and they get a veto. You need support from all the remaining members of the EU for this deal.

So it's impossible?

Not impossible, just improbable. Britain is a major market for European countries. The German car industry, among others, will be lobbying for governments to bend to keep it in the single market. And we have other things to offer too. Polish opposition to immigration restrictions, for instance, could conceivably be bought off by offering military commitments. So we're not exactly powerless. But the truth is most of the incentives are against us. EU member states don't want to encourage eurosceptic forces in their own country, so they'll want a tough deal.

Don't the Swiss have some sort of bespoke arrangement?

Yeah, it's true. The Swiss are almost as hard to please as we are. But the EU isn't about to replicate that deal. It hates it. It's fiddly and cumbersome and comes with loads of paperwork. They recently slapped down the Swiss for suggesting they could limit of freedom of movement too. And their deal doesn't include financial services. That's a big issue for us. We're a services economy.

So the single market route doesn't sound like it's going work. Why on earth does everyone keep mentioning Canada?

Well Canada is the new sex. They've got Justin Trudeau, they've got Mark Carney. It's ridiculous. They're like a real-life political Mad Men.

Is that why everyone wants a Canadian deal?

Unfortunately not. They've gotten a bit overexcited by the Canadian-EU trade agreement and want Britain to come up with its own one. But it's not as easy as they think. For a start it took seven years to get this far and it hasn't even been ratified yet.

Doesn't Article 50 just give us two years?

Kinda, sorta, not quite - we'll come onto that later. But whatever the legal arrangement, seven years is too long. It might be quicker for us - we've already got regulatory equivalence, so there are less differences to iron out - but it will still take a while. And then there's ratification. It looks like all national parliaments get a veto on the Canada deal, so that might hold things up a bit. Once it goes down to that level, you're at the mercy of Romanian widget manufacturers and any other group, in any EU member state, who feel the deal doesn't work for them. And services still aren't included in all this.

So what happens if we don't make any of these deals? After the two year countdown we just fall out the EU with no trade deals in place?

It's so much worse than that. This two year Article 50 timetable doesn't even apply to trade. Article 50 only applies to constitutional and legal arrangements. And more importantly it only applies to ending your current arrangements - not building ones for the future.

Hang on a minute. You mean we can't negotiate any trade deals, inside or outside the EU, while the two-year Article 50 process is ongoing?

Exactly. Actually, it's against the law for EU member states (we'd still be an EU member state until the end of the two-year process) to conduct bilateral trade negotiations with other member states or countries. There might be wriggle room here. If the UK and the EU enter into negotiations in good faith they could authorise those talks. But there's not that much good faith about and EU leaders are irritated by Britain's constant demands for a bespoke single market, its vote to leave and the continued uncertainty around its negotiating position. The thing to remember when imagining all this is that we have very little leverage, except for when we trigger Article 50.

So what happens when we fall out the EU at the end of the Article 50 process?

It's Year Zero. We will have no trade deals, no financial arrangements with the EU or anyone else. We're like a man being thrown out of a plane into the sea with no lifejacket. Seriously. I'm not making this up. It's scary.

I can see that. By the way, it's been five minutes.

I know. Whenever I write one of these things I always lie about the five minute things. I say it, because it makes an otherwise boring subject feel manageable, but then I basically just write as much as I like.

This is outrageous.

And yet here you still are. Don't you want to know what happens to the man who is thrown out of a plane into the sea with no lifejacket?

Alright

He has to revert back to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

What are they?

They're a set of agreements on goods, services and intellectual property. They fix basic trade rules and lay out tariffs and things like that for each member state in 'schedules'. Lots of Brexiters, especially the free market types, quite welcome signing up to WTO rules. They think it would give them the ability to cut a bunch of tariffs and make the UK more open to competition from overseas.

Not exactly what those voters in the Midlands and the north thought they were voting for.

Quite. Same old problem: voting on a vague statement. It's easy for people to turn it round on you. But even in this scenario, things are more complex than they seem. Unfortunately, to explain that, I have to go into tariffs, tariff rate quotas and subsidies.

I beg you not to do that.

It will be mostly painless. Once we went into WTO rules, the tariff question would be pretty easy to answer. We'd just keep whatever the tariffs were in the single market. Say it's five per cent on cars. You just take that system and impose five per cent on cars coming into the UK under the new system. But this time you'd apply it to goods going to and from the EU and Britain, whereas before there were no tariffs because we were in the single market together. The real problem comes when you deal with tariff rate quotas. These are arrangements where you can import a set amount of a type of good at one tariff rate, and any extra at another. So for instance the first 100,000 tonnes of wheat you import would be at two per cent and anything above that at ten per cent. These quotas are arranged across the single market, so if Britain leaves we have to figure out what quantity of the quota applies to us and what we want to do with it. That is a huge undertaking, the likes of which have never really been done before. After all, the last time they messed with the quotas was two EU enlargements ago and they still haven't been able to update them. It's too complex.

You're still talking.

It gets worse. Consider subsidies. We need to establish those all over again for every part of the British economy. And when we say 'figure it out', it’s properly from the ground up. The Brexit lot promised all things to all people. They promised they'd maintain all the subsidies but also that we'd turn into a free market libertarian paradise. Which is it? And what would Britain do with its tariffs? Reduce them, and allow cheap Chinese goods to flood the market, making life cheaper for consumers? Or keep them, and protect domestic industries? These are really big questions and there is no agreement - and certainly no mandate - for any of them.

Please tell me you’re done. I’m depressed, I’m bored and if you say Article 50 one more time I might throw up.

Arti…

Stop it

OK, we're nearly there. Here's the kicker. Even with all those domestic arrangements sorted, you then need to go and sort out trade deals with the EU and all the other countries in the world. Well, probably. We may already have trade deals with some countries if we signed them as a member state in the EU. But that's legally debatable and isn't always the case anyway. And you'll need to do all this very quickly, because with no trade deals in place the UK will be considered a pariah for investment and so unstable that the markets will be terrified of being seen in the same room as it. The economic pressure will be huge. And the political pressure will be even worse. As May said when she won the leadership, she needs to show that she can make a success of Brexit. Number 10 will be desperate for deals. But where are all the negotiating resources we need to agree these trade deals? We don't have them. No-one does. It's too big a task.

So what'll happen?

Bad things. The most likely outcome is that we simply agree to all of the other team's demands. Fancy figuring out the transparency system for price fixing in the Korean public health sector? Because they are really into it. They have to publish the names of committee members who do these exercises. And now we're going to have to be experts in that so we can figure out what our red lines are. We'll be vulnerable to every whim of every lobbying firm in every country on earth. Take, for instance, the American pharmaceutical lobbying industry, which is very powerful and well-established. They'd love to have a go at the NHS. We would need an army of highly accomplished negotiators with lots of time and political support to stop them. And we won't have any of those things. We'll be very aggressively incentivised to accept any trade deal. It could be disastrous.

This is awful. Can we have another referendum?

Not really. If another referendum was likely in the future, we'd be asking all these countries to commit hundreds of thousands of highly-skilled man-hours to a negotiation which we might just annul later on. It would make the trade deals we got even less beneficial than the ones we're going to get anyway.

So we're doomed.

We're in real trouble. But May could follow a much-loved and long-followed rule of politics. She could find the longest grass available and kick this appalling problem right into it.

How would she do that?

An interim agreement. This would deal with her main problem, which is time. The Article 50 timetable is just so punishing no nation could come out of it safely. She could skip all this two-year stuff and agree an interim arrangement where the UK stays in the single market while it negotiates its ultimate Brexit deal, with a deadline of 2020 to coincide with the general election. Then she could go to the country looking for a mandate to sign that deal. That would calm the markets, provide a better situation for a decent deal with Europe and other countries, and generally make the whole process a lot less frightening and hysterical for all involved.

Won’t the Brexit guys hate that?

Yep, but no option is actually good, they're just different levels of bad. They'll hate it less than if she said she'd stay in the single market permanently. And who knows? After five years have passed, views might have changed. Ironically, the reduction in jobs due to Brexit would mean fewer immigrants coming to the UK, so that might relieve public anxiety about the issue. Or on the other hand, the EU could buckle under the weight of the refugee and Greek crises and we'll be even more desperate to get out.

It's been God-knows-how-long and your conclusion is: delay it.

That's right. In a world of terrible options, it's probably the least bad one. But who knows what May will do. The only real certainty is this: it sucks to be her.

Sucks to be us, too.

Yeah good point.

This article is based on conversations with Dr. Holger P. Hestermeyer, Shell reader in International Dispute Resolution at the Dickson Poon School of Law, Professor Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe and professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at Kings College London, and Dr James Strong, fellow in Foreign Policy Analysis and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Ian Dunt is the editor of Politics.co.uk

[MCMC1875]

Looks like a copy and paste job, judging by the English, but he really is short of something to do.

[Al]

I don't know how long it took you to type that lot phillipl but I don't have the patience to read your whinging bleatings any more. Just get over it and sort out where you are going from here for yourself.

[yoda]

Probably the reason why Johnson, Davis , Fox and Leadsom (to tell the farmers they are totally @#/? without the EU) are where they are to take the blame for all this....

Everything you need to know about Theresa May’s Brexit nightmare in five minutes

Is… is it over?

The constant news? No, it's very much continuing, but there's now some certainty. We've a new prime minister and Britain's negotiations to leave the EU are top of her agenda.

Yeah, I heard about this. 'Brexit means Brexit', right?

Right, except that that doesn't really mean anything. Leaving the EU is one thing, the actual deal you get is quite another. And Theresa May is about to try and solve arguably the most dangerous puzzle in international relations.

Surely she just needs to TAKE BACK CONTROL?

Right, which most people think means ending freedom of movement. But there's a couple of reasons that doing that would be economically catastrophic. Firstly, EU migrants bring in billions of pounds a year in taxes. Curtailing their numbers in the UK would have a profound effect on our public finances. Secondly, freedom of movement is a requirement of the single market. And leaving the single market would be one of the most radical and economically risky acts this country has ever taken.

I thought Boris said we could stay in the single market and get rid of freedom of movement.

He was either lying or he didn't understand what he was talking about. Probably the first. The single market is a series of rules. His plan was like saying that you're going to visit Paris but not abide by French law. It was nonsense.

But the papers say May will be able to get some kind of deal

It's possible, but not probable. On the plus side, there is precedent. Norway is a member of the single market and it got a few allowances on things like postal services and fishing. People usually refer to this as 'EEA plus' or 'EEA minus', depending on the deal. But there's a downside. Norway still has to abide by the major single market rules, like freedom of movement, but without any say over them.

That doesn't sound like taking back control

It isn't. And anyone who thought they were voting to end freedom of movement might be quite upset to find out that they haven't.

Won't EU leaders offer us something? Maybe some limits on freedom of movement in exchange for some access to the single market.

Well a few member states might want to. France for instance. The French should never be trusted, but they should be trusted now least of all. They might offer Britain concessions on freedom of movement in exchange for an end to bank passports in the City of London.

What are bank passports?

They allow banks in London to sell services on the continent. It's a dangerous deal. It would end freedom of movement, which would harm the UK, and see much of the City up sticks and head to Paris, which would also harm the UK. But politically it would be very attractive. The public might like the sound of a deal which limits immigration and hammers the banks. So May could be tempted to take it. But even if she does, that's just one country. Eastern European countries would be opposed to that type of deal, and they get a veto. You need support from all the remaining members of the EU for this deal.

So it's impossible?

Not impossible, just improbable. Britain is a major market for European countries. The German car industry, among others, will be lobbying for governments to bend to keep it in the single market. And we have other things to offer too. Polish opposition to immigration restrictions, for instance, could conceivably be bought off by offering military commitments. So we're not exactly powerless. But the truth is most of the incentives are against us. EU member states don't want to encourage eurosceptic forces in their own country, so they'll want a tough deal.

Don't the Swiss have some sort of bespoke arrangement?

Yeah, it's true. The Swiss are almost as hard to please as we are. But the EU isn't about to replicate that deal. It hates it. It's fiddly and cumbersome and comes with loads of paperwork. They recently slapped down the Swiss for suggesting they could limit of freedom of movement too. And their deal doesn't include financial services. That's a big issue for us. We're a services economy.

So the single market route doesn't sound like it's going work. Why on earth does everyone keep mentioning Canada?

Well Canada is the new sex. They've got Justin Trudeau, they've got Mark Carney. It's ridiculous. They're like a real-life political Mad Men.

Is that why everyone wants a Canadian deal?

Unfortunately not. They've gotten a bit overexcited by the Canadian-EU trade agreement and want Britain to come up with its own one. But it's not as easy as they think. For a start it took seven years to get this far and it hasn't even been ratified yet.

Doesn't Article 50 just give us two years?

Kinda, sorta, not quite - we'll come onto that later. But whatever the legal arrangement, seven years is too long. It might be quicker for us - we've already got regulatory equivalence, so there are less differences to iron out - but it will still take a while. And then there's ratification. It looks like all national parliaments get a veto on the Canada deal, so that might hold things up a bit. Once it goes down to that level, you're at the mercy of Romanian widget manufacturers and any other group, in any EU member state, who feel the deal doesn't work for them. And services still aren't included in all this.

So what happens if we don't make any of these deals? After the two year countdown we just fall out the EU with no trade deals in place?

It's so much worse than that. This two year Article 50 timetable doesn't even apply to trade. Article 50 only applies to constitutional and legal arrangements. And more importantly it only applies to ending your current arrangements - not building ones for the future.

Hang on a minute. You mean we can't negotiate any trade deals, inside or outside the EU, while the two-year Article 50 process is ongoing?

Exactly. Actually, it's against the law for EU member states (we'd still be an EU member state until the end of the two-year process) to conduct bilateral trade negotiations with other member states or countries. There might be wriggle room here. If the UK and the EU enter into negotiations in good faith they could authorise those talks. But there's not that much good faith about and EU leaders are irritated by Britain's constant demands for a bespoke single market, its vote to leave and the continued uncertainty around its negotiating position. The thing to remember when imagining all this is that we have very little leverage, except for when we trigger Article 50.

So what happens when we fall out the EU at the end of the Article 50 process?

It's Year Zero. We will have no trade deals, no financial arrangements with the EU or anyone else. We're like a man being thrown out of a plane into the sea with no lifejacket. Seriously. I'm not making this up. It's scary.

I can see that. By the way, it's been five minutes.

I know. Whenever I write one of these things I always lie about the five minute things. I say it, because it makes an otherwise boring subject feel manageable, but then I basically just write as much as I like.

This is outrageous.

And yet here you still are. Don't you want to know what happens to the man who is thrown out of a plane into the sea with no lifejacket?

Alright

He has to revert back to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

What are they?

They're a set of agreements on goods, services and intellectual property. They fix basic trade rules and lay out tariffs and things like that for each member state in 'schedules'. Lots of Brexiters, especially the free market types, quite welcome signing up to WTO rules. They think it would give them the ability to cut a bunch of tariffs and make the UK more open to competition from overseas.

Not exactly what those voters in the Midlands and the north thought they were voting for.

Quite. Same old problem: voting on a vague statement. It's easy for people to turn it round on you. But even in this scenario, things are more complex than they seem. Unfortunately, to explain that, I have to go into tariffs, tariff rate quotas and subsidies.

I beg you not to do that.

It will be mostly painless. Once we went into WTO rules, the tariff question would be pretty easy to answer. We'd just keep whatever the tariffs were in the single market. Say it's five per cent on cars. You just take that system and impose five per cent on cars coming into the UK under the new system. But this time you'd apply it to goods going to and from the EU and Britain, whereas before there were no tariffs because we were in the single market together. The real problem comes when you deal with tariff rate quotas. These are arrangements where you can import a set amount of a type of good at one tariff rate, and any extra at another. So for instance the first 100,000 tonnes of wheat you import would be at two per cent and anything above that at ten per cent. These quotas are arranged across the single market, so if Britain leaves we have to figure out what quantity of the quota applies to us and what we want to do with it. That is a huge undertaking, the likes of which have never really been done before. After all, the last time they messed with the quotas was two EU enlargements ago and they still haven't been able to update them. It's too complex.

You're still talking.

It gets worse. Consider subsidies. We need to establish those all over again for every part of the British economy. And when we say 'figure it out', it’s properly from the ground up. The Brexit lot promised all things to all people. They promised they'd maintain all the subsidies but also that we'd turn into a free market libertarian paradise. Which is it? And what would Britain do with its tariffs? Reduce them, and allow cheap Chinese goods to flood the market, making life cheaper for consumers? Or keep them, and protect domestic industries? These are really big questions and there is no agreement - and certainly no mandate - for any of them.

Please tell me you’re done. I’m depressed, I’m bored and if you say Article 50 one more time I might throw up.

Arti…

Stop it

OK, we're nearly there. Here's the kicker. Even with all those domestic arrangements sorted, you then need to go and sort out trade deals with the EU and all the other countries in the world. Well, probably. We may already have trade deals with some countries if we signed them as a member state in the EU. But that's legally debatable and isn't always the case anyway. And you'll need to do all this very quickly, because with no trade deals in place the UK will be considered a pariah for investment and so unstable that the markets will be terrified of being seen in the same room as it. The economic pressure will be huge. And the political pressure will be even worse. As May said when she won the leadership, she needs to show that she can make a success of Brexit. Number 10 will be desperate for deals. But where are all the negotiating resources we need to agree these trade deals? We don't have them. No-one does. It's too big a task.

So what'll happen?

Bad things. The most likely outcome is that we simply agree to all of the other team's demands. Fancy figuring out the transparency system for price fixing in the Korean public health sector? Because they are really into it. They have to publish the names of committee members who do these exercises. And now we're going to have to be experts in that so we can figure out what our red lines are. We'll be vulnerable to every whim of every lobbying firm in every country on earth. Take, for instance, the American pharmaceutical lobbying industry, which is very powerful and well-established. They'd love to have a go at the NHS. We would need an army of highly accomplished negotiators with lots of time and political support to stop them. And we won't have any of those things. We'll be very aggressively incentivised to accept any trade deal. It could be disastrous.

This is awful. Can we have another referendum?

Not really. If another referendum was likely in the future, we'd be asking all these countries to commit hundreds of thousands of highly-skilled man-hours to a negotiation which we might just annul later on. It would make the trade deals we got even less beneficial than the ones we're going to get anyway.

So we're doomed.

We're in real trouble. But May could follow a much-loved and long-followed rule of politics. She could find the longest grass available and kick this appalling problem right into it.

How would she do that?

An interim agreement. This would deal with her main problem, which is time. The Article 50 timetable is just so punishing no nation could come out of it safely. She could skip all this two-year stuff and agree an interim arrangement where the UK stays in the single market while it negotiates its ultimate Brexit deal, with a deadline of 2020 to coincide with the general election. Then she could go to the country looking for a mandate to sign that deal. That would calm the markets, provide a better situation for a decent deal with Europe and other countries, and generally make the whole process a lot less frightening and hysterical for all involved.

Won’t the Brexit guys hate that?

Yep, but no option is actually good, they're just different levels of bad. They'll hate it less than if she said she'd stay in the single market permanently. And who knows? After five years have passed, views might have changed. Ironically, the reduction in jobs due to Brexit would mean fewer immigrants coming to the UK, so that might relieve public anxiety about the issue. Or on the other hand, the EU could buckle under the weight of the refugee and Greek crises and we'll be even more desperate to get out.

It's been God-knows-how-long and your conclusion is: delay it.

That's right. In a world of terrible options, it's probably the least bad one. But who knows what May will do. The only real certainty is this: it sucks to be her.

Sucks to be us, too.

Yeah good point.

This article is based on conversations with Dr. Holger P. Hestermeyer, Shell reader in International Dispute Resolution at the Dickson Poon School of Law, Professor Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe and professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at Kings College London, and Dr James Strong, fellow in Foreign Policy Analysis and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Ian Dunt is the editor of Politics.co.uk

Yawn

[Mike E]

In future philipl, can I suggest you post the link and your reaction rather than just copying and pasting the lot?

Posts like that clog up the thread in terms of scrolling a page, esp after reading it.

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

Looks like a copy and paste job, judging by the English, but he really is short of something to do.

Seems to be a bit of a propaganda campaign. Bit like Fergie complaining about a ref for a month after getting a bad decision. Its supposed to make us grasp the enormity and horror of what we've done, fully recognise the endless disastrous repercussions and vow never to do anything so stupid again. Its about as transparent as Jim's technique of describing things he thinks as "everyone knows".

Two problems philipl, nobody in their right mind is gonna read all that unless already very pre-disposed to it, and I personally had vindication of my reason for voting Leave last night. France has been in a state of emergency for a year now, I'm willing to take a slight hit on everything else not to have Britain go through that (at least not for a while).

[only2garners]

Seems like a pretty fair analysis of where we are now. My view from some time ago (it's a post on here but I can't be bothered to look back for it) was that the most likely outcome would be that there will be a public demand for a second referendum to approve or not the actual terms of withdrawal in a couple of years time. Wrapping that into the 2020 general election is clearly another option.

[yoda]

Philipl does not want a second referendum on the withdrawal terms, he wants the referendum over ruling and the UK staying in the EU

[only2garners]

Maybe Philipl does but the article he posted doesn't.

[jim mk2]

So what happens if we don't make any of these deals? After the two year countdown we just fall out the EU with no trade deals in place?

It's so much worse than that. This two year Article 50 timetable doesn't even apply to trade. Article 50 only applies to constitutional and legal arrangements. And more importantly it only applies to ending your current arrangements - not building ones for the future.

Good read that post Philp, well done. Rather more pertinent than some dunderhead congratulating himself for voting Brexit because of some extremist nutcase in France.

With regards to the above, stories in the press today that we have no one - absolutely no one - in Whitehall capable of trade negotiations, so it will all have to be outsourced to foreigners to negotiate them for us - all at huge expense.

As an indication of the size of the task, Canada, which recently agreed a trade deal with the EU after 5 years of talks, had 300 trade negotaitors working on the deal.

That £350m "saving" from Brexit (copyright lies Farage, Johnson et al) just got significantly smaller.