Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Zanza]

"We wanted something and we didn't get it: we win!"

The whole document is spin. On legal services, the UK asked for something, EU not. On public procurement vice versa. Both are included now. One is a UK win, the other a compromise.
Also under "no automatic termination" it states as a UK win that it is automatically terminated in case the UK would leave the ECHR, which is hated by some of the Tory right.
On cumulation, a standard FTA practice is sold as UK win etc.

[celedhring]

That document Sheilbh posted just needed a Trump-style nickname for Theresa May. Shaky Theresa? Brussels Theresa?  Damn, I'm no good at this 

[garbon]

Stable Theresa

[Richard Hakluyt]

SAS Theresa

[The Larch]

Just perusing that document makes one believe that EU law stole their Christmas presents and set fire to their house.

[The Brain]

Not directly brexit related but thought this interesting. Not because it's saying anything new but because it's finally getting a mainstream media airing.
Fingers crossed the downfall of the alt right is underway as people grow rise to the nonsense of identity politics.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/23/conservatives-white-working-class-black-racial-inequality

Worse still, part of this government's "radical" plan is to frame the debate – during this extraordinary year of disproportionate Covid-19 deaths and the killing of George Floyd

Wasn't George Floyd killed in the US? Are the disproportionate Covid-19 deaths those in the US or in the UK?

[Sheilbh]

Here is the list of all the things the UK government "won" - I guess that spin is necessary for domestic acceptance:

Yes - imagine that sort of spin

Antonello Guerrera
@antoguerrera
FRENCH OFFICIAL TELLS REUTERS "THE BRITISH MADE HUGE CONCESSIONS" IN BREXIT TRADE TALKS IN THE LAST 48 HOURS, MOSTLY ON FISHING (Reuters)
5:36 PM · Dec 23, 2020·Twitter Web App

Meanwhile "BREAKING: SOURCES V FAR FROM UK PM TELL ME THE FRENCHIES HAVE FOLDED ON ALL THE SECRETLY IMPORTANT STUFF AND IT'S A BLOODY FANTABULOUS DEAL FOR OL' BULLDOG BLIGHTY."

Both sides will have compromised. Both sides will have got enough for them to be able to sell it as a "win". That's why there's an agreement

I think the UK negotiators did pretty well given their instructions and the debate ended up being about managed divergence. It was far closer to the Brexiter vision of Brexit than the political declaration or Barnier's initial instructions.

The really striking thing is how thin it is - but that was an objective for Brexiters. As Matt Holehouse put it: "It's a useful paper as it shows how closely aligned the twin rollers of Vote Leave and the Commission were in milling a thin deal. May wrestled against the Cion doctrine that autonomy must trump market access every time; Johnson embraced it."

Just perusing that document makes one believe that EU law stole their Christmas presents and set fire to their house.

EU law is their bugbear ().

Edit: Oh and there's a glitch. Apparently the baseline fish numbers shared by the EU negotiating team with member states was not the same as agreed when in the room with the UK negotiating team. So there's a reconciliation going to make sure everyone is talking about the same numbers

[Tamas]

"It's a useful paper as it shows how closely aligned the twin rollers of Vote Leave and the Commission were in milling a thin deal. May wrestled against the Cion doctrine that autonomy must trump market access every time; Johnson embraced it."

Let's wait for the final version on that. As I understood the relevant bit in this "we pwned Europe" list, there won't be divergence unless one party wants it and they get together and agree and both accept (check Equivalence part).

[Sheilbh]

"It's a useful paper as it shows how closely aligned the twin rollers of Vote Leave and the Commission were in milling a thin deal. May wrestled against the Cion doctrine that autonomy must trump market access every time; Johnson embraced it."

Let's wait for the final version on that. As I understood the relevant bit in this "we pwned Europe" list, there won't be divergence unless one party wants it and they get together and agree and both accept (check Equivalence part).

I don't think that's right. It means there's a mechanism to review (and, I imagine, amend parts of the deal to adjust the balance). If either side diverges in a way that distorts the agreement the other side can take short-term rebalancing measures (probably tariffs or quotas) that are strictly limited, proportionate and subject to approval by an independent panel of arbitrators. The review also appears to be the way to update the LPF in the future because there's apparently no ratchet provision.

Similarly the agreement on non-regression ratchet seems to be that the UK agrees to provide an equivalent level of protection as EU law (but can abolish retained EU law) - but this only applies to standards that have a clear impact on trade. If a party breaches the non-regression and it has a serious impact on trade then there's the ability to retaliate.

And I don't know that it's a "we pwned Europe" list - I've seen stuff like this in negotiations on commercial contracts where you do a table of your ask/the other sides ask/the final position (or who conceded). As a trainee lawyer I prepared stuff like this It can be a useful document in negotiations (or so they told me...).

Edit: Although obviously leaking that document (especially to Guido) is pure politics/spin and the other point is actually it doesn't give any weighting of priorities or indication of what really matters to the UK. In part that's because the UK surrendered on its real interests (the services sector which = 80% of our economy) because the alignment requirement would be too high.

[Zanza]

View from JPMorgan, presumably a neutral institution in this matter:

[Zanza]

So now the Brexit deal is done
It won't really please anyone.
The end result - there is just one
They took control of their fish

The final haul of all this wrangling,
This grand UK-EU untangling?
The Anglo-Saxons only angling
To take control of their fish.

At last, it seems, the Brits are free
To claim their longed-for sovereignty
The nation's hopes now lie at sea
They took control of their fish.

The Empire where the sun never set
That once invented the Internet
Its global dreams are now all wet
The whole country has gone fishing.

Free trade was just a hope that scattered
Zero tariffs never mattered
Only that which can be battered
Still lay in their ambition.

The outcome met with some resisting
From titans with a FTSE listing
How can our business keep existing?
They asked their Chancellor Rishi.

What trade will stop the economy tanking?
Restore our nation's global ranking?
Is it cars or tech or banking?
The answer? Rather fishy.

Boris, schooled in the works of Seneca
Pinned hopes not on Nissan or AstraZeneca
But put his faith in the One True Cod
And if like me you find it odd

That after the bluster and Churchillan words I
See a deal that pleases only Captain Birdseye
A destructive total break with Brussels
For just a clutch of whelks and mussels

As though those angry Brexit voters
Merely cared for pelagic quotas...
Well here's the rub: a real crowd-pleaser
Brussels' response to the Johnson geezer?
"The fish you catch will need a Visa
To get to the EU."

There will be further sovereign incursion
We'll see more breakaways emergin'
That slippery fish, the Scottish Sturgeon
Will take control of you.

So when this history's finally written
We'll start to see that Global Britain
Looks even weaker than a kitten
That took control of its fish.

Was it really worth the hassle?
This bid to not be an EU vassal?
More short-sighted than an eye test at Barnard Castle
They took control of their fish.

[Sheilbh]

Ian Leslie with a first draft of some sort of pre-agreed economic "test" of what success looks like:

Ian Leslie
@mrianleslie
19h
If Britain has growth that's equal to or faster than the EU over the next 5 years, I'll admit I was wrong about Brexit. Any Brexit-supporters willing to make that promise the other way?

I'm not sure that's quite it - I think it depends what quarter you take as your baseline and that, arguably, it should focus on similar countries (France, Italy, Germany?) or sectors. But it seems like a good first stab.

And that poem gets to one of the most interesting and important bits about this. There'll be a narrative by ultra hard-liners that Johnson has betrayed them and fishermen, when the real story is that we ended up with a far shallower, narrower deal than was favoured by the City, the TUC, the CBI. I think part of it is that there are probably lessons to be learned politically from the hard-line Brexiters. But also that the sectors and groups we spent years thinking had unhealthy sway over the UK government (bankers, lawyers, big business) actually had fuck all influence.

[Duque de Bragança]

Lefigaro.fr, quoting AFP, says a deal has been reached between the EU and the UK.

https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/brexit-l-union-europeenne-et-le-royaume-uni-ont-trouve-un-accord-20201224

PS: details just came up, as per Zanza's post.

[Zanza]

Growth alone is probably not a good measure, considering demographic trends and potentially the baseline. Growth/capita is already better.

Also not sure if e.g. a further decline of manufacturing in the North and farming everywhere hidden by further growth in London (and as effect further growth of imbalances) can really be considered a success for Britain.

[Zanza]

Von der Leyen is holding a press conference and states that a deal has been reached.