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Politics, politics, politics

milo said:
Thatcher never would've held the referendum and would never leave the EEA, she spent too much time setting it up. I also think that Thatcher would've understood the importance of the UK standing with and supporting the former Eastern Bloc members.
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She'd never have allowed us to become part of the EU superstate either.

I also doubt she would have been much of a fan of the restrictions in trade outside the EU either - it's hardly the low-regulation, free trade union we signed up for.
 
SpurMeUp said:
The government its currently engaged twisting itself into knots over a pointless, yet extremely challenging, anti-EU trade treaty. It should be focused on making UK services better and more efficient. But it's trying to find a way to do the impossible- get a good deal out of Brexit.

The uk government doesn't control Brexit, the EU has all the cards. We pay billions to have less say in trading rules and worse trading terms than we have in the EU.

Farce is too light a word to pin to this waste of time.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
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They hold half the cards, we hold the other half.

That's how negotiations work.
 
scaramanga said:
They hold half the cards, we hold the other half.

That's how negotiations work.
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Mays speech in a nutshell: we tried playing hardball you didn't bite, now I have to make some positive noises about Europe and some concessions, to try to get you to work with us.

May is not in control of Brexit, unless she is willing to jump off a cliff. And only the insane think that is a good idea.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
scaramanga said:
She'd never have allowed us to become part of the EU superstate either.

I also doubt she would have been much of a fan of the restrictions in trade outside the EU either - it's hardly the low-regulation, free trade union we signed up for.
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I do not think that is true (either us being part of a superstate or her not allowing closer integration). Throughout her time as PM the direction of travel was towards closer links with the EU.

It was a Conservative, Lord roosterfield, who largely created the single market. Here is a letter from Thatcher to him thanking him for this

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107295

A single market, by its nature, needs a common external barrier or else countries will try to undercut each other and then move goods on within the market.
 
SpurMeUp said:
Mays speech in a nutshell: we tried playing hardball you didn't bite, now I have to make some positive noises about Europe and some concessions, to try to get you to work with us.

May is not in control of Brexit, unless she is willing to jump off a cliff. And only the insane think that is a good idea.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
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May's speech also repeated "No deal is better than a bad deal".

All the time we hold the ability to walk away, the EU will be under pressure from Germany (the only remaining power in the EU) to do a deal.
 
SpurMeUp said:
Mays speech in a nutshell: we tried playing hardball you didn't bite, now I have to make some positive noises about Europe and some concessions, to try to get you to work with us.

May is not in control of Brexit, unless she is willing to jump off a cliff. And only the insane think that is a good idea.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
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Absolutely, the only piece of the process that she was in control of was the timing of the A50 notification and she threw this away for a minutes applause at the Conservative conference.
 
milo said:
I do not think that is true (either us being part of a superstate or her not allowing closer integration). Throughout her time as PM the direction of travel was towards closer links with the EU.

It was a Conservative, Lord roosterfield, who largely created the single market. Here is a letter from Thatcher to him thanking him for this

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107295

A single market, by its nature, needs a common external barrier or else countries will try to undercut each other and then move goods on within the market.
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The EU she moved towards is unrecognisable from the bloated bureaucracy that it is now. There's no way any free marketeer in their right mind would support what the EU has become.

I see no problem in the scenario you paint in your final paragraph. If a country can undercut others then it should. Just because a group of countries agree to trade freely with each other, they shouldn't be able to restrict trade between members of that deal and external countries.
 
scaramanga said:
May's speech also repeated "No deal is better than a bad deal".

All the time we hold the ability to walk away, the EU will be under pressure from Germany (the only remaining power in the EU) to do a deal.
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Did she? I have read the speech and couldn't see anything like that. Which passage were you thinking of?

The EU's priority is maintaining the integrity of the EU27. This is a far larger market than the UK and German manufacturers have supported this approach.

The threat to walk is an empty promise. If we got close to it, the exodus of financial institutions would bring the government down. That is before we get to not being able to fly, lorries piled up outside Dover to the M25... If no deal was a serious contender Dover would be a building site right now. Dover being a building site is the only part of hard Brexit that I have no trouble getting behind.
 
scaramanga said:
The EU she moved towards is unrecognisable from the bloated bureaucracy that it is now. There's no way any free marketeer in their right mind would support what the EU has become.

I see no problem in the scenario you paint in your final paragraph. If a country can undercut others then it should. Just because a group of countries agree to trade freely with each other, they shouldn't be able to restrict trade between members of that deal and external countries.
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The EU was hardly lean when she was PM. I am sure that she would've seen its faults and found it frustrating but would have seen that the benefits to British businesses outweigh this.

You might not but it runs contrary to the principles of the single market which were written by free-marketeer Tories.

I think that you make the mistake of only considering tariff free trade within the single market. It is the removal of non-tariff barriers that makes trade frictionless and this wwwas the prize of the single market. This would be impossible if countries were undercutting each other at the external barrier.
 
milo said:
Absolutely, the only piece of the process that she was in control of was the timing of the A50 notification and she threw this away for a minutes applause at the Conservative conference.
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If she hadn't notified, the headbangers and wreckers in her party would have replaced her with a sovereignty fetishist. She has never had control over anything.
 
milo said:
Did she? I have read the speech and couldn't see anything like that. Which passage were you thinking of?

The EU's priority is maintaining the integrity of the EU27. This is a far larger market than the UK and German manufacturers have supported this approach.

The threat to walk is an empty promise. If we got close to it, the exodus of financial institutions would bring the government down. That is before we get to not being able to fly, lorries piled up outside Dover to the M25... If no deal was a serious contender Dover would be a building site right now. Dover being a building site is the only part of hard Brexit that I have no trouble getting behind.
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Did she drop it from the speech? It was in the draft, I know that for a fact. It doesn't surprise me that she did, she really does get more departed by the day. A great example of why positive discrimination is both a bad thing and damaging to the cause it's supposed to benefit in the first place.
 
I don't remember "no deal is better than a bad deal" being in her speech. However she did say it when asked by a journalist, Laura Kunesberg iirc, if no deal was better than a bad deal.
 
milo said:
It's pretty bricky reading all round and we now have the lowest Moody's rating we have ever had. It's going to cost us a lot of money and effectively means that seven years of austerity was for nothing.

I think that it would be a mistake to take the reasons in isolation. If the economy wasn't stalling because of Brexit, increased spending would have less impact.

It is a vote of no confidence in the government and its fiscal policy and approach to Brexit.
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Credit rating agencies are like neo-liberal league tables. Their scoring systems rewards hard capitalist policies and punishes anything remotely Keynesian.
 
milo said:
Thatcher never would've held the referendum and would never leave the EEA, she spent too much time setting it up. I also think that Thatcher would've understood the importance of the UK standing with and supporting the former Eastern Bloc members.
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Thatcher was a supporter of the economic side of the EEC.

But she was strongly opposed to political integration. Hessletine brought her down largely because of her opposition to what became Maastricht
 
I must say I've been quite impressed by the announcements coming from the Labour conference - renationalising transport and energy, ending PFIs, curbing personal debt, infrastructure investment and opposition to the single market based on state aid/competition grounds. It is starting to feel a bit like 1944 or 1995 again.

If they can keep the Chuka Umunna/remainer faction and the anti-Semites at bay, it could be a procession towards 2022
 
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