International Brexit Discussion v9: The Last Extension

[Arkain2K]

PM Johnson says 39 billion pound divorce bill not due in no-deal Brexit

BIARRITZ, France (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday that if Britain leaves the European Union without a deal, it will no longer legally owe the 39 billion pound divorce bill agreed by his predecessor Theresa May.

Earlier British media reported Johnson would use a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk on the sidelines of the G7 Summit to set out that Britain would pay less than 10 billion pounds of the settlement if it leaves without a deal.

Sky News said the figure was 9 billion pounds, while the Sunday Times reported British government lawyers had concluded the amount Britain was legally obliged to pay could be as low as 7 billion pounds.

“I think what the entire European Union understands is that if we come out without a deal then...the 39 billion is no longer legally pledged,” Johnson told Sky News, when asked if he had told EU leaders this week he planned to withhold the money.

“As I’ve said many, many times we will therefore on November 1 have very substantial sums available from that 39 billion to spend on supporting our farmers...and indeed for investment in all sorts of areas.”

In June, a source close to French President Emmanuel Macron said that failing to pay the Brexit bill would amount to a sovereign debt default and on Wednesday an official in his office said that leaving without a deal would not remove Britain’s obligation to pay.

“There is no magic world in which the bill no longer exists,” the French official said on Wednesday.

The EU has repeatedly said it will not start negotiating a new trade deal with Britain before the issues of money, the Irish border and citizens rights are settled, so it is likely to return to the fore as a precondition for the EU to start trade talks after Brexit if Britain refuses to pay.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...-bill-not-due-in-no-deal-brexit-idUSKCN1VF04F

 

[Arkain2K]

Britain must settle EU bill even after no-deal Brexit - EU executive

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union expects Britain to honour all financial obligations made during its membership of the bloc even after a no-deal Brexit, a spokeswoman for the European Commission said on Monday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday if Britain leaves without a divorce deal, it will no longer legally owe the 39 billion pounds ($47.88 billion) agreed by his predecessor.

“All commitments that were taken by the 28 member states should be honoured. This is also and especially true in a no-deal scenario where the United Kingdom would be expected to continue to honour all commitments made during EU membership,” spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said.

“Rather than going now into a judicial action threat, I think that it is important to make clear that settling accounts is essential to starting of a new relationship on the right foot, based on mutual trust,” she said, adding London had not formally raised the issue with the EU so far.

Johnson has vowed to take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without an agreement to manage the unprecedented divorce and the expected economic fallout.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...ter-no-deal-brexit-eu-executive-idUSKCN1VG0YG

 

[PolishHeadlock2]

https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/26/nearly-100-companies-move-to-netherlands-ahead-of-brexit-dutch-agency

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Nearly 100 companies have relocated from Britain to the Netherlands or set up offices there to be within the European Union due to the United Kingdom’s planned departure from the bloc, a Dutch government agency said on Monday.

Another 325 companies worried about losing access to the European market are considering a move, the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency said.

“The ongoing growing uncertainty in the United Kingdom, and the increasingly clearer possibility of a no deal, is causing major economic unrest for these companies,” said Jeroen Nijland, NFIAcommissioner. “That is why more and more companies are orienting themselves in the Netherlands as a potential new base in the European market.”

The businesses are in finance, information technology, media, advertising, life sciences and health, the NFIA said.

The Netherlands has been competing with Germany, France, Belgium and Ireland to attract Brexit-related moves.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who took office last month, has pledged to take Britain out of the European Union at the end of October with or without an exit deal.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Toby Chopra)

 

[JDragon]

I don't think defaulting on a commitment will be something the financial markets will take kindly to.

I also think it would be pretty stupid on the UK's behalf if they want a future trade deal with the EU which will not strike a deal with a country that does not honor its commitment (and therefore will wait for the UK to pay).

Also:

Watch out for politicians trying to claim they have negotiated the figure downwards, when in fact the UK has simply been paying off the budget while it is inside the EU.

The figure will be way less than 39 million as that was the March figure.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ppens-tory-leadership-contest-w-a8952581.html

 

[JDragon]

Regarding the number of moves, it is also apparent that yes, multiple countries are setting up an 'in case' footprint on the continent, but most of these press releases are just for marketing purposes. Do they detail how many jobs have been created? I think once Brexit is through this may still intensify, but for now, nobody knows what Brexit will look like. This is only contingency planning, the large relocations have not materialized and if they will, it will not be before Brexit.

 

[7437]

PM Johnson says 39 billion pound divorce bill not due in no-deal Brexit

BIARRITZ, France (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday that if Britain leaves the European Union without a deal, it will no longer legally owe the 39 billion pound divorce bill agreed by his predecessor Theresa May.

Earlier British media reported Johnson would use a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk on the sidelines of the G7 Summit to set out that Britain would pay less than 10 billion pounds of the settlement if it leaves without a deal.

Sky News said the figure was 9 billion pounds, while the Sunday Times reported British government lawyers had concluded the amount Britain was legally obliged to pay could be as low as 7 billion pounds.

“I think what the entire European Union understands is that if we come out without a deal then...the 39 billion is no longer legally pledged,” Johnson told Sky News, when asked if he had told EU leaders this week he planned to withhold the money.

“As I’ve said many, many times we will therefore on November 1 have very substantial sums available from that 39 billion to spend on supporting our farmers...and indeed for investment in all sorts of areas.”

In June, a source close to French President Emmanuel Macron said that failing to pay the Brexit bill would amount to a sovereign debt default and on Wednesday an official in his office said that leaving without a deal would not remove Britain’s obligation to pay.

“There is no magic world in which the bill no longer exists,” the French official said on Wednesday.

The EU has repeatedly said it will not start negotiating a new trade deal with Britain before the issues of money, the Irish border and citizens rights are settled, so it is likely to return to the fore as a precondition for the EU to start trade talks after Brexit if Britain refuses to pay.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...-bill-not-due-in-no-deal-brexit-idUSKCN1VF04F

The plan is just to default?

I guess that's an option. Not a good move though

 

[Arkain2K]

I don't think defaulting on a commitment will be something the financial markets will take kindly to.

I also think it would be pretty stupid on the UK's behalf if they want a future trade deal with the EU which will not strike a deal with a country that does not honor its commitment (and therefore will wait for the UK to pay).

Also:

Watch out for politicians trying to claim they have negotiated the figure downwards, when in fact the UK has simply been paying off the budget while it is inside the EU.

The figure will be way less than 39 million as that was the March figure.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ppens-tory-leadership-contest-w-a8952581.html

I've always thought this "Brexit divorce bill" to be rather amusing, for it's similar to what we would call alimony and child supports over here.

Would it be accurate to say that Britain is obligated to continue funding the E.U all the way to the end of the 2020 cycle as if they are still a member, but get none of the benefits of a member after Oct 31, 2019?

I know Theresa May tried to sell to her constituents that the Brexit bill that the U.K should pay is essentially the price for continuing access to the Single Market, but I highly doubt that's how the E.U sees it, especially now.

Will that £39 billion be adjusted pro-rata or may be through some kind of rebate later to credit them back for the time frame between their last day of E.U membership to the last day of this 2020 payment cycle?

 

[JDragon]

Will that £39 billion be adjusted pro-rata or may be through some kind of rebate later to credit them back for the time frame between their last day of E.U membership to the last day of this 2020 payment cycle?

It's just getting reduced with each payment. They can ask for extensions, run down the clock, and say 'see!! No divorce bill!!!1!'

 

[Teen Wolf]

The plan is just to default?

I guess that's an option. Not a good move though

What do you mean? Who wouldn’t want to make a trade deal with someone who doesn’t pay their debts.

 

[JDragon]

Business will not forgive or forget the great Brexit betrayal of trust

Polly Toynbee


Across the country, directors of companies are trying to explain the realities of no deal to ministers. But nobody is listening


We’ll easily cope,” breezes the no-deal prime minister. “This is a great, great country.” Indeed it is. Most inhabitants would certainly agree. But to love your country is not to think it greater than others, nor incapable of making grievous mistakes. Britain has not, as yet, made the fateful error of actually electing Boris Johnson and his cabinet of undesirables. Nor did it vote for a no-deal Brexit. But on he drives, accelerating towards the abyss.


It’s that insouciant ignorance that drives businesses mad; the devil-may-care fecklessness, ignoring the boring details. Andrea Leadsom, our improbable business secretary, writes in the Sunday Telegraph that she has met firms of all kinds and guess what? “They were overwhelmingly positive about our future.” She ends: “Britain’s best years for business and for all our people lie ahead.”

“I was climbing the wall! Drives me to despair!” says Varga, managing director of Seetru, a Bristol manufacturer of industrial safety valves. Perhaps Leadsom has only met happy businesses by refusing to hear from those like Varga, a Cambridge engineering PhD, who has failed to find a hearing with any branch of government for the inconvenient facts from companies like his.

"My local Tory MP, Michelle Donelan, wouldn’t come to the factory: when I saw her in her surgery she couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.” Labour MPs have listened and visited but no Tory to date. At a large meeting with Suella Braverman, then Brexit minister, she parroted the usual empty phrases: “trusted trader” and “WTO rules”. Since 2016 he has been trying to raise the alarm, but “no one wants to know”. He wrote to the prime minister, who passed it on to Steve Baker, then at the Department for Exiting the European Union, but got a useless stock reply.

At one time his exports were growing fast, with 130 employees and eight apprentices training to high standards, but since the referendum things have quickly changed. “Some EU customers instantly decided it was too much trouble and switched to EU manufacturers – we lost 10% of the business.” Others with his valves embedded will cut them out next time they redesign their machines. To trade in the EU he needs to obey rules of origin, recording every raw material, tracking every component, requiring “horrendous” new IT systems, his various valves containing 30,000 different configurations and “tripling our admin workload”. New security rules require fencing and guards round his perimeter with checks on staff, costing millions. Delays due to checks “are anathema to our just-in-time customers. They give us three chances: late once is a warning, twice is a final warning and then you’re out.”

This not just about the bottom line. There are emotional shocks too. “Our EU customers were our friends, but there was a sudden chill after 2016. I hear antagonism, nationalism rising, as if we are ‘other’ and not one of them any more. My people are upset by conversations with old customers who say: ‘You bloody Brits! You’re ruining everything, and we’re not going to pay the extra duty.’” His office staff are remainers, but the factory floor is split in half. “Everyone tiptoes around each other or it gets too heated. The Brexiters are aggressive, the remainers creep into their shell.”

His father praised 1972’s entry into the common market. “Fantastic. Overnight just one gold standard for every product exported to every European country instead of a plethora of kite marks.” When Brexiters castigate EU regulations, “they have no idea how good they are for us”. Varga is a “congenitally liberal Tory, but I can no longer support that party”.


‘At a large meeting with Suella Braverman, then Brexit minister, she parroted the usual empty phrases: “trusted trader” and “WTO rules”.’ Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock
Talk to others in quite different trades and the crescendo of despair rises as “do or die” day nears. Chris Slowey, head of Manfreight, a hauliers in Northern Ireland with 300 employees and 120 indirect jobs, lists just some of the crises ahead: they take Kerry Foods from the Republic to places like Leeds, but with a no deal “taking just one quiche across the border needs three vet certificates, for the milk, the ham and the eggs. That’ll take five times more vets and they’re short already.”


He needs customs agents, who are in short supply. He buys 40 HGVs a year from Europe. “Each will cost £16,000 extra in tariffs, plus 16% on parts.” Here’s what just-in-time means for food deliveries – exactly 47 minutes from factory to ferry, two hours and 10 minutes crossing and eight hours max to stores in Leeds. “Any delay and drivers have to stop and take a break, but food has a short shelf-life.” He fears British stores will stop sourcing from Ireland – and until the Operation Yellowhammer leaks, neither he nor his Freight Transport Association had any warning of possible fuel shortages. “Just let them see what happens when customers can’t get what they want, people used to strawberries on Christmas Day.” And here’s Val Hennessy, director of International House, a large English language school in Bristol where Brexit is already “a disaster”. Five jobs have been lost so far. “Europe is our main market, lovely students bringing lovely money to Britain, a great export. But they sense they’re not welcome, they think we’re a bit xenophobic, a bit fascist – and they might need a visa. So they go to Ireland, whose schools are booming.”

All three of these very different businesses make the same complaint. No one listens. They can’t get the ear of any ministers. No one wants to know what Brexit is doing already, or the devastation no deal will cause to companies like theirs. They warn that bogus reassurances about the UK’s preparedness will come unstuck. Lorry delays at ports may be sorted within weeks, but Varga says his problems are mostly “frog-boilers” – the steady loss of customers that has started already. Why hasn’t business shouted louder from day one? He tried, but others took fright in the face of hostile press coverage. He says businesses were warned that pro-leave customers would turn their back on products from companies that spoke out against Brexit.


What these businesspeople share is sheer incredulity

<{CMPALM}>


at what is happening, at politicians charging ahead deliberately remaining ignorant of the damage done. Expect the mighty £138m public information campaign to be empty propaganda. HMRC promises to contact “every known trader”, but why bother when they refuse to hear what they’d rather not know? Gordon Brown rightly calls for parliament to hold an independent inquiry into the consequences of a no-deal withdrawal, as Keir Starmer and the former head of the civil service Lord Kerslake demand that MPs be given all the facts.

The prime minister threatens not to honour our EU debts, which would guarantee that no free trade deal could ever be signed. But, he says, none of this is for parliament to decide. As we head towards the cliff-edge, it seems only this most cavalier and feckless of prime ministers is allowed to “take back control”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/27/business-brexit-directors-companies-no-deal

 

[Prutfis]

If I'm the UK, i'm doing heavy backchannels right now to Italy, Poland, Hungary, etc....

The easiest solution, to me, for them if they can't get Financial Passporting rights is to have other countries leave the EU and simply force it to fold

I mean the Italian PM did just resign,......

lol. Poland and Hungary are not going to do shit. They would be riding horses and carriages without the EU. Italy? lol, that´s like Europes banana republic.

 

[A_bomb47]

lol. Poland and Hungary are not going to do shit. They would be riding horses and carriages without the EU. Italy? lol, that´s like Europes banana republic.

This. EU would be better off without the Southern and Eastern welfare countries.

 

[Prutfis]

This. EU would be better off without the Southern and Eastern welfare countries.

Indeed.

 

[JDragon]

lol. Poland and Hungary are not going to do shit. They would be riding horses and carriages without the EU. Italy? lol, that´s like Europes banana republic.

Financially and economically maybe, but of course these countries are important for the political relevance of the bloc.

Italy is actually two countries: the massively industrialized North (fantastic place to visit, too) and the horrible, Mafia-infested South.

 

[whougonnacall]

Business will not forgive or forget the great Brexit betrayal of trust

Polly Toynbee


Across the country, directors of companies are trying to explain the realities of no deal to ministers. But nobody is listening


We’ll easily cope,” breezes the no-deal prime minister. “This is a great, great country.” Indeed it is. Most inhabitants would certainly agree. But to love your country is not to think it greater than others, nor incapable of making grievous mistakes. Britain has not, as yet, made the fateful error of actually electing Boris Johnson and his cabinet of undesirables. Nor did it vote for a no-deal Brexit. But on he drives, accelerating towards the abyss.


It’s that insouciant ignorance that drives businesses mad; the devil-may-care fecklessness, ignoring the boring details. Andrea Leadsom, our improbable business secretary, writes in the Sunday Telegraph that she has met firms of all kinds and guess what? “They were overwhelmingly positive about our future.” She ends: “Britain’s best years for business and for all our people lie ahead.”

“I was climbing the wall! Drives me to despair!” says Varga, managing director of Seetru, a Bristol manufacturer of industrial safety valves. Perhaps Leadsom has only met happy businesses by refusing to hear from those like Varga, a Cambridge engineering PhD, who has failed to find a hearing with any branch of government for the inconvenient facts from companies like his.

"My local Tory MP, Michelle Donelan, wouldn’t come to the factory: when I saw her in her surgery she couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.” Labour MPs have listened and visited but no Tory to date. At a large meeting with Suella Braverman, then Brexit minister, she parroted the usual empty phrases: “trusted trader” and “WTO rules”. Since 2016 he has been trying to raise the alarm, but “no one wants to know”. He wrote to the prime minister, who passed it on to Steve Baker, then at the Department for Exiting the European Union, but got a useless stock reply.

At one time his exports were growing fast, with 130 employees and eight apprentices training to high standards, but since the referendum things have quickly changed. “Some EU customers instantly decided it was too much trouble and switched to EU manufacturers – we lost 10% of the business.” Others with his valves embedded will cut them out next time they redesign their machines. To trade in the EU he needs to obey rules of origin, recording every raw material, tracking every component, requiring “horrendous” new IT systems, his various valves containing 30,000 different configurations and “tripling our admin workload”. New security rules require fencing and guards round his perimeter with checks on staff, costing millions. Delays due to checks “are anathema to our just-in-time customers. They give us three chances: late once is a warning, twice is a final warning and then you’re out.”

This not just about the bottom line. There are emotional shocks too. “Our EU customers were our friends, but there was a sudden chill after 2016. I hear antagonism, nationalism rising, as if we are ‘other’ and not one of them any more. My people are upset by conversations with old customers who say: ‘You bloody Brits! You’re ruining everything, and we’re not going to pay the extra duty.’” His office staff are remainers, but the factory floor is split in half. “Everyone tiptoes around each other or it gets too heated. The Brexiters are aggressive, the remainers creep into their shell.”

His father praised 1972’s entry into the common market. “Fantastic. Overnight just one gold standard for every product exported to every European country instead of a plethora of kite marks.” When Brexiters castigate EU regulations, “they have no idea how good they are for us”. Varga is a “congenitally liberal Tory, but I can no longer support that party”.


‘At a large meeting with Suella Braverman, then Brexit minister, she parroted the usual empty phrases: “trusted trader” and “WTO rules”.’ Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock
Talk to others in quite different trades and the crescendo of despair rises as “do or die” day nears. Chris Slowey, head of Manfreight, a hauliers in Northern Ireland with 300 employees and 120 indirect jobs, lists just some of the crises ahead: they take Kerry Foods from the Republic to places like Leeds, but with a no deal “taking just one quiche across the border needs three vet certificates, for the milk, the ham and the eggs. That’ll take five times more vets and they’re short already.”


He needs customs agents, who are in short supply. He buys 40 HGVs a year from Europe. “Each will cost £16,000 extra in tariffs, plus 16% on parts.” Here’s what just-in-time means for food deliveries – exactly 47 minutes from factory to ferry, two hours and 10 minutes crossing and eight hours max to stores in Leeds. “Any delay and drivers have to stop and take a break, but food has a short shelf-life.” He fears British stores will stop sourcing from Ireland – and until the Operation Yellowhammer leaks, neither he nor his Freight Transport Association had any warning of possible fuel shortages. “Just let them see what happens when customers can’t get what they want, people used to strawberries on Christmas Day.” And here’s Val Hennessy, director of International House, a large English language school in Bristol where Brexit is already “a disaster”. Five jobs have been lost so far. “Europe is our main market, lovely students bringing lovely money to Britain, a great export. But they sense they’re not welcome, they think we’re a bit xenophobic, a bit fascist – and they might need a visa. So they go to Ireland, whose schools are booming.”

All three of these very different businesses make the same complaint. No one listens. They can’t get the ear of any ministers. No one wants to know what Brexit is doing already, or the devastation no deal will cause to companies like theirs. They warn that bogus reassurances about the UK’s preparedness will come unstuck. Lorry delays at ports may be sorted within weeks, but Varga says his problems are mostly “frog-boilers” – the steady loss of customers that has started already. Why hasn’t business shouted louder from day one? He tried, but others took fright in the face of hostile press coverage. He says businesses were warned that pro-leave customers would turn their back on products from companies that spoke out against Brexit.


What these businesspeople share is sheer incredulity

<{CMPALM}>


at what is happening, at politicians charging ahead deliberately remaining ignorant of the damage done. Expect the mighty £138m public information campaign to be empty propaganda. HMRC promises to contact “every known trader”, but why bother when they refuse to hear what they’d rather not know? Gordon Brown rightly calls for parliament to hold an independent inquiry into the consequences of a no-deal withdrawal, as Keir Starmer and the former head of the civil service Lord Kerslake demand that MPs be given all the facts.

The prime minister threatens not to honour our EU debts, which would guarantee that no free trade deal could ever be signed. But, he says, none of this is for parliament to decide. As we head towards the cliff-edge, it seems only this most cavalier and feckless of prime ministers is allowed to “take back control”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/27/business-brexit-directors-companies-no-deal

Easy deal will lead to magic utopia isnt on the cards ? The rich people who will benefit from ducking eu laws and carving up the uk under the wto lied to us?

 

[aitkenmike]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49493632 - Tories to today ask Queen to prorogue parliament.

I guess one must destroy democracy to save democracy! Brexit for Parliament to take back control - - > Shutting down parliament to eliminate requirement for parliamentary support.

The hypocrisies never end.

 

[JDragon]

Given the impact, this sounds like a coup to me.

Clearly also a flaw in the system that this is possible. Germany e.g. only knows so-called constructive votes of no confidence to get rid of the PM (i.e. you must vote for a new one), but nothing of this sort where a PM who wasn't even the leading candidate when the election occurred can prevent the democratically elected MPs to exercise their legislative powers during the most crucial time for the UK in the past 70 years.

 

[Billy no mates]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49493632 - Tories to today ask Queen to prorogue parliament.

I guess one must destroy democracy to save democracy! Brexit for Parliament to take back control - - > Shutting down parliament to eliminate requirement for parliamentary support.

The hypocrisies never end.

I think Boris and his team see it as a win-win gambit if proroguing works then they get what they want , if it doesn't it sets up his stance for the general election .

 

[KnightTemplar]

At this point, I don't really care who wins, Brexit or Remain. I just hope it turns violent. Game of Thrones is finished and I'm not particularly impressed with the MCU Phase 4 movies. English Civil War II: The Brexiteers Strike Back would at least give me something cool to watch on TV

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Boris Johnson warns Trump US must compromise to get UK trade deal​

Donald Trump assures Johnson he'll be gentle as he lubes his mushroom tip while bending him over.