Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

Maybe time to work on mijn nederlands?

[Zanza]

The UK really wanted to make progress on the transition period today, but I think their concessions are not something a British government should concede.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/19/the-five-costs-of-uks-pyrrhic-brexit-victory

Northern Ireland

The first, and potentially most painful, climbdown has come over the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Last month Theresa May insisted no British prime minister could possibly agree to the "backstop" proposal outlined by the EU. It sought to prevent a hard border after Brexit by keeping single market rules the same in Northern Ireland.

Now, the UK has gone to back to a position it appeared to accept in December that a backstop is acceptable – so long as both sides keep working toward technological and legal alternatives that might avoid this necessity for full regulatory alignment.

Since the EU regards both proposed UK alternatives as implausible, it implies an eventual showdown with Democratic Unionists has only been postponed unless new "magic" answers can be found.

The ray of hope for Downing Street is that the UK seems to have retained the right to try to come up with an alternative backstop rather than automatically accept the toxic-looking EU version – a plan D, if you like.

There is no way the DUP or parliament can accept that. It's basically an annexation of Northern Ireland by the EU. The rules for Northern Ireland would be made in Brussels, not in London or Belfast in the future. This would be a constant major pain point between UK and EU. And of course Spain will demand something similar for Gibraltar.

This is bound to be a failure later this year unless the Brexiteers are so hell- bent on achieving Brexit that they are willing to give up Northern Ireland and can find enough Labour MPs to support them once the DUP has withdrawn support.

[Josquius]

The pound went up a fair bit.

Though I can't help but see parallels between all this crap about a technilogical border and my work. I'm sure anyone who has worked in IT has experienced the same. The pure business people just asking for the world, expecting that because they can imagine something it can easily be built

[Zanza]

https://www.ft.com/content/38570c12-2b92-11e8-9b4b-bc4b9f08f381

A Brexit withdrawal agreement in name only
The EU and UK have agreed to keep things just the same for a while longer

A revised draft withdrawal agreement was published on Monday, and we can now see the likely shape of Brexit.

The UK's exit from the EU will be largely on the EU's terms. On almost every substantial point, the UK has accepted the EU's position. This is an agreement that could have been finalised last summer, as it is in effect a translation of the EU's April 2017 negotiation guidelines into legal prose.

But the draft is not without problems. There is no provision for extending the envisaged transition period of 21 months. And once the UK is outside the EU, it may not be legally possible for the EU to amend the agreement. So a new cliff edge is created, and there is no reason to believe the UK will be any more prepared for the cut-off date of December 31 2020 than it was for March 29 2019.

The draft also seeks deftly to avoid the problem of whether the UK can retain the benefit of free trade agreements after March 29 2019. It does this with a footnote, which states that the EU will tell its trading partners to treat the UK as part of the EU. Footnotes can be powerful things, but there is no guarantee that the EU's trading partners will accept such an elegant fix.

The UK has trumpeted an apparent concession: it can negotiate trade deals during the transition period, as long as they do not take effect until afterwards. But this is an illusory power. No serious potential trading partner will want to enter into an agreement with the UK until the ultimate trading relationship with the EU becomes known.

The text itself is colour-coded. The parts with green highlighting are fully agreed; those with yellow highlighting are where there is agreement in principle subject to drafting points; and the parts with no highlighting are still to be discussed. There are still large parts which are neither green nor yellow. One suspects that these are the points where the UK has not yet conceded to the EU.

The text on Ireland is largely in white. But the UK accepted the "backstop" of Northern Ireland staying in the EU's single market and the customs union back in December. Unless the UK reneges from that position, that backstop will be part of the exit agreement. This means that unless the UK and the EU agree something else, the default will be that Northern Ireland effectively stays in the EU. And how that accords with the rest of the UK is a problem which can only be solved by the rest of UK in effect staying in the EU too. Or by a united Ireland.
   
But many Brexit supporters seem not to mind. The UK will be in the EU without any representation at any institutions or formal influence for 21 months after next March, and Leavers appear only to shrug. The UK will not take control of its borders, laws or money until at least 2021, and that seems fine as far as they are concerned. The best explanation for this relative silence is that the key objective of the UK being officially out of the EU will have been achieved. And once the UK is out then it will be hard for the UK to rejoin.

And so in this way, the UK is heading for a Brexit in name only, at least until 2021. A "52:48" Brexit, which is what it should have been all along. The slight majority in the referendum get their mandate discharged with the UK leaving the EU, and the slight minority are respected by there being little change in practice.

The shape of what happens after 2021 is less clear. It will then be five years since the referendum result. The EU may adopt a hard negotiating position for a trade relationship, or there could be a generous association agreement. Those "red lines" which survive that long may no longer have any attraction to the government of the day.

Theresa May once promised that there would be a robust "red, white and blue Brexit". We now have a limp green, yellow and white Brexit, where the UK has not in any meaningful way taken back control of anything. All the time and effort expended since the referendum has been to create a situation where most things will stay the same.

Good overall analysis of the Withdrawal Agreement from the FT.

[Josquius]

Here is David Davis in reaction to the negotiations:

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/22/post-brexit-passports-set-to-be-made-by-franco-dutch-firm

Post-Brexit passports set to be made by Franco-Dutch firm

The post-Brexit blue passport will not be produced by the British firm that makes the current burgundy version, with sources suggesting the contract will be awarded to a Franco-Dutch firm instead.

Changing the colour is regarded by some Brexiters as a powerful symbol of Britain's restored sovereignty.

But the British firm De La Rue has lost out on the contract to make them, its chief executive confirmed on Thursday morning. It is understood that Gemalto, which is listed on the French and Dutch stock exchanges, won the race for the £490m printing job.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday morning, the chief executive of De La Rue, Martin Sutherland, challenged the prime minister or the home secretary to "come to my factory and explain my dedicated workforce why they think this is a sensible decision to offshore the manufacture of a British icon".

He said he would appeal against the decision, and he refused to guarantee that no jobs would be lost at the Gateshead plant the firm uses to produce the burgundy version.

Sutherland acknowledged that his firm had been beaten on price in an open competition, but he said that was unfair. He said that in France, as a foreign-based firm, De La Rue would be barred from bidding to produce the French passport.

The Labour MP John Spellar said "no other EU country behaves like this", claiming others "support their industry". Such decisions had driven the Brexit vote, he said.

The Home Office said on Wednesday night that no final decision had been made on where the new passports would be printed. A spokeswoman said: "We are running a fair and open competition to ensure that the new contract delivers a high quality and secure product and offers the best value for money for customers.

"We do not require passports to be manufactured in the UK. A proportion of blank passport books are currently manufactured overseas, and there are no security or operational reasons why this would not continue."

Theresa May told the House of Commons in February: "It is right that from autumn 2019 we will issue new blue and gold passports, which have always been the UK's colours of choice for our passports. It is absolutely right that after we leave the European Union we return to deciding the colour of passports that we want, not that the EU wants."

De La Rue issued a profit warning on Tuesday, telling investors its profits for the coming year are likely to be "at the lower end of the current consensus range", without giving further details.

The pro-Brexit former cabinet minister Priti Patel described the decision on the contract as perverse.

The Liberal Democrats' Brexit spokesman, Tom Brake, said: "The blue passport saga is turning into a farce. First it was established that we did not have to leave the EU to have blue passports. Now we learn that the passports will be printed by a foreign company. And to add insult to injury, we will pay over the odds for them because the value of the pound has fallen since Brexit and they will have to be imported."

Eloise Todd, of the pro-remain pressure group Best for Britain, said: "The new pro-Brexit blue passports were supposed to be a statement of intent and now we find out they are to be made by the French or the Dutch. The irony is unreal."

Gemalto offers what its website calls an "end to end ePassport solution", and is involved in the production of 30 countries' passports.

Under EU competition rules, large public procurement contracts must be offered to companies across the the bloc.

It is unclear how the government's approach may change after Brexit, but countries seeking to strike new trade deals with the UK are likely to seek enhanced access to public contracts.

[Tamas]

Teh humiliation. 

[Josquius]

My mam used to work at De La Rue.

--

Yet more proof that brexit is all about finishing what thatcher started and crushing British industry once and for all.

[Duque de Bragança]

My mam used to work at De La Rue.

De La Rue sounds very French i.e "from the street". 

[Tamas]

My mam used to work at De La Rue.

De La Rue sounds very French i.e "from the street". 

His mother was also working on finishing what Thatcher started.


Tyr, it is the Brexiteers who claim this decisions is to kill British industry. So Brexit must be standing for the opposite.

[Josquius]

My mam used to work at De La Rue.

De La Rue sounds very French i.e "from the street". 

His mother was also working on finishing what Thatcher started.


Tyr, it is the Brexiteers who claim this decisions is to kill British industry. So Brexit must be standing for the opposite.

And this is a very brexit decision.

[garbon]

Since this morning The Guardian has uncovered that the move will save British government £120mil.

[The Brain]

He said that in France, as a foreign-based firm, De La Rue would be barred from bidding to produce the French passport.

Is this true? How does that work with EU rules?

[Richard Hakluyt]

The later guardian article :

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/22/contract-to-print-uk-passports-abroad-will-save-120m

From that article it seems that the production of passports does not have to be put out to tender under EU rules. But the UK has decided to do so and has used the usual EU tendering process to find a supplier.

[The Brain]

Thanks!