EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Really, I thought he was miscast as an ex-Navy Seal with a passion for cake decorating.

Bloody marine life, migrating to the surface for food and warmth and then just drifting back down again when they think the sun might reveal their dirty deeds.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/17/ocean-research-marine-life-bermuda-coral-reefs-nekton-triton-vessel

^

"Bermuda has been largely denuded of marine life due to overfishing, with the government, which is under the auspices of Britain, last year shelving a plan for a new ocean reserve despite overwhelming public support. "

Perhaps we should tell Farage :P

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/17/olympic-cyclist-callum-skinner-leave-eu-twitter-brexit

Aah got you.

Imo very unlikely at the moment. TT are going for that budget, max customers on min equipment type vibe (and they use different technology to us to do it), whereas VF are trying for a sort of best network, least congestion, best speeds sort of vibe.

I think that if it does happen - and no rumours have reached my ears on it yet - it'll be after we know how the latest VF strategy (of dropping line rental, which is way overdue and might shift the industry a bit) works.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/22/brexit-means-brexit-when-is-big-question captain obvious that exiters forgot about strikes again...

Clearly the vote was corrupted by broken media rules - let's just annul it:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/22/fox-news-brexit-eu-referendum-bbc-ofcom

Good old Murdoch again.

But how can you tackle foreign companies pissing on your rules? By joining common legal blocks (which is part of the EU).

Ohwait.

On another note, i was reading the independent car garage magazine (while waiting for my car to be fixed, it's about a million times better than Hello magazine at the hairdresser yes) and there was a whole article on how the EU clamped down on Hyundai/another outlet for price fixing and made reporting cartels/price fixing easier.

Another task that now needs to be taken up by the UK if a brexit is a full one...

A special issue of Political Insight dedicated to Brexit. Articles free until the end of September.

http://pli.sagepub.com/content/current

Would it?

There's approximately a million British pensioners living in Spain, using Spanish services and health care provision that they've never contributed towards. How is that good for the Spanish economy?

Because all they're kids are operating / working in call centres flogging stuff to the UK?

Tx!

He was talking about the British economy

Who else would go to all those English pubs?

Besides it saves on the cost of keeping them in British prisons.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/26/politicians-rise-hate-crimes-brexit-vote-un-committee

They're of course right but their power is equal to "strongly worded letter".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37220799

"Apple should repay Ireland 13bn euros, European Commission rules"

TL:DR you can't make tax exceptions for some business only...

Very good piece on the current lack of leadership/direction/planning

https://www.ft.com/content/11a7bab6-7107-3efb-86b1-fb7d1fdfa2d9

^^ behind a paywall - you have the text?

FTA:

Apple said the decision would be harmful for jobs.

as if being dead wasn't bad enough.

Brexit requires more than political will — it needs to be capable of happening
David Allen Green Author alerts
| Aug 30 11:03 | 63 comments | Share
Theresa May, UK prime minister
Theresa May, UK prime minister © Getty Images

Wanting something to happen is never enough. More than mere desire is needed. This simple truth is obvious in the current state of Brexit policy in the UK.

The discrepancy between will and capability is not new. In the days following the Brexit referendum vote, the Conservative minister Rory Stewart made the distinction: there would be no shortage of political will, he averred, but the important question was whether there would be the political capability. That is still the key question.

Since the referendum, strident expressions of political intent have been plentiful. Brexit means Brexit, and Brexit “shall” happen. Often the “shall” seems as if it is in bold and italicised block capitals. The assertion is made with confident nods and hard stares. Every few days a “senior Conservative” is quoted somewhere saying that Brexit is inevitable. If determination was sufficient for Brexit to happen, there could be no doubt of its certainty.

But declarations are shallow, however sincere. On the other side of the policy ledger —next to the ever-growing column headed “political will” — is an almost empty column headed “political capability”. For something to be marked on this side of the ledger requires something other than grand statements of political intent, regardless of font size or facial expression. Concrete things are needed instead.

The “political capability” column does have some entries. Two months after the referendum vote, the UK government has indeed made a start. It has not been a good or impressive one, and it is nothing compared to the scale of the task. But there is something.

One significant step made by Theresa May, the new prime minister, a half-baked departmental reorganisation, is already causing needless problems. It creates a “department for exiting the EU” and a “department for international trade” and looked daft and premature at the time. In hindsight, it is looking worse.

Looking from the outside, the department for exiting appears to have done little more than publish an organogram listing some 24 deputy directors and effecting a correction in the Guardian that it does not in fact hold formal meetings in a branch of Starbucks.

The department’s website contains news only of other departments. Its public email address is still that of the cabinet office. No doubt there are many constructive things happening out of view, but there is nothing whatsoever to show those looking in, anxious about what is happening and going to happen.

The department of international trade has got off to a less bad start. This is in part because it took over the impressive (if unsung) team of civil servants at the trade and investment team. But other than opening three one-person kiosks in the US, there is little to show that is directly to do with Brexit. The activity so far is nothing more than what one would expect during the summer months from a trade department of a leading world economy. And this is not a surprise, as no other nation would want to enter trade negotiations until Brexit takes shape.

What there has been, however, are turf wars. The international trade department is in dispute with the foreign office over economic foreign relations. The Brexit department is in dispute with others about obtaining appropriate staff and resources. The Treasury is reported to be opposed to the pro-Brexit ministers in respect of UK’s participation in the European single market. One suspects the greater part of the energy so far expended in Whitehall over leaving the EU has been in respect of administrative in-fighting.

All this was foreseeable. The fundamental problem with the prime minister’s immediate departmental reorganisation was that it was implementing part of a Brexit plan before the government had decided what it was going to do.

A pop-up department headed by David Davis may have been just the solution that the country needed; but other approaches, such as the foreign office or Treasury (or both) leading on Brexit, should also have been examined. The problem with small government departments in Whitehall is that they are routinely swatted by the ever-so-nice elephants from the more established departments.

Mrs May does not accept the problem is with her misconceived departmental reorganisation. She is reported as being “unimpressed” by this turf war, as if it were somehow not the inevitable consequence of her own flawed decision.

Now she is reported to be telling civil servants “to get on with the job” of “delivering Brexit”. But this demand suffers from a similar flaw to the reorganisation. There is no plan for the civil service to deliver. There is no “job” for officials to be “getting on with”. One Conservative politician is even calling for civil servants to be sacked for frustrating Brexit, even though there is no plan yet to be opposed.

The shape of Brexit is still to be determined. The only issue that was resolved by the referendum was about membership of the EU, not what comes next. The simple question was whether the UK should remain a member of the union. It was about membership in principle.

This noise about the cabinet and the civil service evidences not that there is cabinet “opposition” to Brexit or that wily officials are being deftly obstructive. It is the sound Whitehall makes when there is no policy to begin with: we are hearing expressions of political pain.

This week the prime minister has called a special cabinet meeting. Reports say she is expecting ministers to come to her with plans for Brexit. She wants solutions, not problems. But the lack of policy direction is not the fault of cabinet ministers. The wooliness is coming from the top.

Ministers and their departments disagree on Brexit. Of course they do. The Treasury wants continued participation in the single market. This is not odd. Other departments want other things. That is not odd either. Some ministers want a “hard Brexit” and others are still unconvinced by any Brexit. All this is to be expected.

Mrs May seems to have reserved overall Brexit policy to herself and her office, but has done nothing so far that indicates leadership on the matter. Instead, there is a policy emptiness, ministerial bickering and departmental rows.

The challenges facing a Brexit government are legion. Should the UK be part of the single market? What about freedom of movement? What about Scotland’s opposition? What about the concerns from Northern Ireland about the impact on the Good Friday Agreement? What about the Irish border? What about the dozens of areas of policy that depend on ongoing membership of the EU? Will there be any trade agreements in place for the UK to enter into?

The Brexit government has to address each of these and many other serious questions on top of its routine and mundane work, in a period of austerity and budget cuts, and with a civil service one-fifth smaller than in 2010.

None of this is to say Brexit will not happen. Many things are possible in human affairs. But it will not come about because of declarations that it “shall” happen. Brexit also needs to be capable of happening, and that requires a policy as well as resources. Instead of just asserting that Brexit “shall” happen, the government now needs to explain “how” it will happen. It seems not to have any idea.

David Allen Green, a lawyer and journalist, writes the FT’s law and policy blog. David has just been commissioned by Oxford University Press to write a book on Brexit.

Have any thinking brexiters complained about the "lack of democratic oversight" and "look at how much it costs" yet in all this?

I can't imagine the lexitters being very pleased with how it goes. Cure worse than disease etc. etc...

Nearly had a jobs flashback, but they're not supported

#getscoat

Bad pun asides, the government wants "jobs" and the public wants "jobs w/o fucking everyone over by tax rates only big companies can get". Word on the street is that ROI is eying up Google and so on...another non tax payer. Becoming a tax haven to get specific jobs, sounds a bit like UK banking...?

"Apple should repay Ireland 13bn euros, European Commission rules"

Here someone has more power than just a strongly worded letter. :)

Why did some people want to exit the EU again?