Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Zanza]

BRINO is coming...

Theresa May to ask the EU for an extra two years of Brexit transition

[...]
However, government sources have told the Times that they are to seek an additional transition period for customs and regulations that would effectively extend the transition period to 2023, some seven years after the vote for Brexit.

The additional transition period would be designed to give the government time to create and implement new customs arrangements that would avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, sources told the paper.

May's government has yet to come up with a proposal that will convince both her own party and Brussels. On Wednesday the chief executive of HMRC, Jon Thompson told Parliament that the current proposals put forward by the government would take up to five years to implement and cost businesses up to £20 billion a year. EU officials have so far rejected both of the proposals put forward by the UK.

The plan for an extended transition comes as May prepares to face down a Commons rebellion on the customs union. Up to 15 Conservative MPs are considering joining with Labour to back an amendment to the Brexit bill that could force Britain to stay in a customs union with the EU after Brexit.[...]

https://www.businessinsider.de/theresa-may-to-ask-the-eu-for-a-further-two-years-of-brexit-transition-2023-2018-5?r=UK&IR=T

Let's see if the EU agrees to that. I guess only if it is without caveats, i.e. also accepting ECJ jurisdiction etc. Maybe even all of it, i.e. single market with free movement. Will be interesting to see the reaction.

[The Brain]

At least the US only has one Trump. The UK has a whole ruling class of Trumps.

[Josquius]

The worry with this transition though is its post official brexit.
So it's less avoiding jumping off a cliff and more doing it in slow motion

[garbon]

Looks like it is the UK that is the target of Soros plots.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/29/george-soros-drastic-action-needed-for-eurozone-to-survive

Soros-backed campaign to push for new Brexit vote within a year

A campaign to secure a second Brexit referendum within a year and save the UK from "immense damage" is to be launched in days, the philanthropist and financier George Soros has announced.

The billionaire founder of the Open Society Foundation said the prospect of the UK's prolonged divorce from Brussels could help persuade the British public by a "convincing margin" that EU membership was in their interests.

In a speech on Tuesday ahead of the launch of the Best for Britain campaign – said to have already attracted millions of pounds in donations – Soros suggested to an audience in Paris that changing the minds of Britons would be in keeping with "revolutionary times".

Best for Britain had already helped to convince parliamentarians to extract from Theresa May a meaningful vote on the final withdrawal deal, he said, and it was time to engage with voters, and Brussels, to pave the way for the UK to stay in the bloc. It is expected to publish its campaign manifesto on 8 June.

Soros, 87, said: "Brexit is an immensely damaging process, harmful to both sides ... Divorce will be a long process, probably taking more than five years. Five years is an eternity in politics, especially in revolutionary times like the present.

"Ultimately, it's up to the British people to decide what they want to do. It would be better however if they came to a decision sooner rather than later. That's the goal of an initiative called the Best for Britain, which I support.

"Best for Britain fought for, and helped to win, a meaningful parliamentary vote which includes the option of not leaving at all. This would be good for Britain but would also render Europe a great service by rescinding Brexit and not creating a hard-to-fill hole in the European budget.

"But the British public must express its support by a convincing margin in order to be taken seriously by Europe. That's what Best for Britain is aiming for by engaging the electorate. It will publish its manifesto in the next few days."

Soros said he feared the EU could be heading towards another major financial crisis triggered by austerity and populist political parties intent on blowing the bloc apart.

Sounding the alarm as financial markets fell into turmoil on Tuesday amid a deepening political crisis in Italy, Soros said the EU had lost its way since the 2008 banking crash and required radical transformation in order to survive.

"The EU is in an existential crisis. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong," he said.

However, Soros said he was convinced it was the ideal time for the EU to reform itself and prepare the ground for the UK staying inside the bloc.

"The economic case for remaining a member of the EU is strong, but it will take time for it to sink in," Soros said. "During that time the EU needs to transform itself into an association that countries like Britain would want to join, in order to strengthen the political case.

"Such a Europe would differ from the current arrangements in two key respects. First, it would clearly distinguish between the European Union and the eurozone. Second, it would recognise that the euro has many unresolved problems and they must not be allowed to destroy the European Union."

Italian bonds dropped sharply on Tuesday, pushing the country's borrowing costs to the highest levels in more than four years as concerns grew that the EU's third-largest economy could exit the single currency.

Sergio Mattarella, the country's president, vetoed the appointment of a Eurosceptic as finance minister over the weekend, laying the ground for fresh elections later this year.

Hungarian-born Soros said an "addiction to austerity" at the heart of Europe was harming economic development, which had in turn been exploited by populist politicians to stoke anti-EU support.

[Josquius]

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/foreign-affairs/brexit/news/95922/mp-forced-change-brexit-bill-stance-following-threats

Doesn't this fit the definition of treason?
Fucking country.

[Valmy]

'Soros-backed' huh usually when the media starts talking about 'US-backed' it can mean anything from the fact that the US funds and is going all in on something all the way to we simply do not oppose it very energetically. Pretty meaningless.

[garbon]

'Soros-backed' huh usually when the media starts talking about 'US-backed' it can mean anything from the fact that the US funds and is going all in on something all the way to we simply do not oppose it very energetically. Pretty meaningless.

He announced the campaign would be launched so pretty sure he is actively supporting it.

[Valmy]

'Soros-backed' huh usually when the media starts talking about 'US-backed' it can mean anything from the fact that the US funds and is going all in on something all the way to we simply do not oppose it very energetically. Pretty meaningless.

He announced the campaign would be launched so pretty sure he is actively supporting it.

Got it. So it is on that side of the 'backed'

[Josquius]

This made me laugh.
Typical brexiter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11r4E_Hi8Dk

[Tamas]

This made me laugh.
Typical brexiter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11r4E_Hi8Dk

[crazy canuck]

I love it

"If Brexit means driving off a cliff edge so be it, that's what we voted for".

[Valmy]

It annoys me slightly that the Brexiters insist that they have some kind of overwhelming mandate to fundamentally change everything in the entire country just because of their narrow victory.

But it is not really any of my business.

[Josquius]

It's a real guy too
https://twitter.com/philip_pinto?lang=en

It annoys me slightly that the Brexiters insist that they have some kind of overwhelming mandate to fundamentally change everything in the entire country just because of their narrow victory.

But it is not really any of my business.

Yep 52-48, assuming that 52 wanted the hardest brexit possible, should balance out to a half in/half out soft brexit.
Considering that most of the 52 wanted various version of soft brexit...
It's a coup, pure and simple.
You just know had  the result been the other way the government would have been bending over backwards to keep the 48 happy.

[Zanza]

As part of the meaningful vote debate, Liam Fox said:

He said the government had "to be able to hold out in our negotiations the prospect of no deal" otherwise the EU would get the upper hand.

I wonder if he really believes that or if he just trots out the old mantra. It must be obvious to just about anybody that there is a threat of a no deal scenario, but that threat is held by the EU and is why they have the upper hand...

[The Larch]

So, a new negotiation strategy or massive mental fart by Boris?

Boris Johnson's Brexit explosion ruins Tory business credentials
The foreign secretary's outburst reveals commerce has lost out to nationalism


"Fuck business." Never was the Brexit manifesto more succinctly captured than in Boris Johnson's impromptu aside. As slogans go, it has everything. It surfs the populist wave of anger towards elites. It is easy to understand. Hell, it's even shorter than "take back control".

The UK's foreign secretary apparently outlined his new business strategy at a private reception, when challenged about the clamour from Airbus and BMW over the threat to jobs and investment. Mr Johnson's aides say the remark was aimed at business lobbyists. It makes little difference. (He has now fled to Kabul to avoid having to resign rather than vote with the government for a new runway at Heathrow. The foreign secretary had said he would lie down in front of the bulldozers. It turns out he preferred to lie low.)

"Fuck business." It may have been a casual aside but it was also a revealingly contemptuous one, not least in its indifference to the fate of Airbus's UK staff. This is the strategic nihilism of a spoiled child lashing out. After two years of failing to offer up even a scintilla of a plan, relying on magical thinking and the belief that if Britain just held its nerve, Europe would fold, this is all he had left — a petulant explosion.

It is only a few weeks since Mr Johnson was caught saying much the same thing about Ireland as its complexities threatened the simplicity of his Brexit. So f*** business, f*** Northern Ireland — there is no workforce too large to sacrifice, no damage too great to endure as long as someone else does the enduring.

Mr Johnson's oratorical outrages have become so numerous that we have learnt to discount them. But he is still one of the leading lights of the Conservative party, the party of business, of free trade, of low taxation and getting the dead hand of the state out of the way of the nation's wealth creators. For a Tory to be declaring "fuck business" should be as unlikely as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn yelling something similar about the workers.

If this were only Mr Johnson, one might disregard it as the latest effusion from an increasingly marginalised figure. But he was articulating a broader strand of opinion. Nigel Farage's response to Airbus was that "manufacturing is 10 per cent of the UK economy". So, manufacturing can get lost as well. The message that you did not see on the side of the Leave campaign bus is that economic pain is a price worth paying. For all the pretence of new business opportunities, this was always their view.

Mr Farage, of course, is not a Conservative. So let us consider Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary and born-again Brexiter (a condition not entirely unrelated to considering himself a leadership contender). Challenged about Airbus's comments, Mr Hunt said it was "completely inappropriate" for business to be voicing fears for the future of its workforce because it could undermine the prospects for a good deal. You have to wonder at some of this. Does Mr Hunt imagine that the EU was unaware of the issue? Does he envision a breathless Eurocrat reading about Airbus and thinking: "Oh wow. This could be really useful in the negotiations."

There has always been a tension in Conservatism between nationalism and commerce. Wiser Tories kept the two strands in harmony, recognising that a wealthy nation is more likely to be a strong (and indeed, stable) one. But Brexit has brought the tension back to the fore. Mr Johnson will not let a grubby thing like business inconvenience higher ideals. This ambivalence is why, for example, Brexiters are happy to forgo the planned cut in corporation tax to fund their Brexit pledge on health.

Ranged against Mr Johnson's new romantics are the less dashing realists such as Philip Hammond at the Treasury, Greg Clark, business secretary, and Theresa May's deputy, David Lidington. The prime minister, herself no friend of unfettered capitalism, also sees economic chaos as a sub-optimal outcome. As one minister put it: "Whenever policy decisions come to the fore, facts trump ideology."

For now the realists are in control, but this fissure goes beyond Brexit. One need only listen to leavers raging at the chancellor or the Bank of England to know a Tory Rubicon has been crossed. This then is the state of British politics. A Labour party which has fallen to anti-capitalists and a Conservative party, infected by a strain of economic denialism and with a core — though not yet a majority — who place little store in business-friendly policies.

For the first time in 40 years business cannot be sure that either major party cares about its interests. The nation must hope that global businesses making investment decisions and hearing of Mr Johnson's remark do not plump for the obvious reply.