Brexit and General UK politics thread

[Zaune]

Yet more good news.

Brexit could cause food disruption 'unprecedented for an advanced economy outside of wartime'

LONDON — Academics are warning the UK could "sleep-walk" into a crisis over food supply post-Brexit, with little signs that the government understands the scale of change and has a plan to cope with it.

Three leading UK food academics on Monday published a paper that warns Brexit could disrupt supply and prices for food in the UK on a scale "unprecedented for an advanced economy outside of wartime."

"The silence about the future of UK food since the Brexit referendum is an astonishing act of political irresponsibility and suggests chaos unless redressed," the report, titled "A Food Brexit: Time to get real", says.

"The country could sleep-walk into a food crisis, unless these problems are acknowledged and addressed."

Professors Tim Lang of City University, Erik Millstone of the University of Sussex, and Terry Marsden of the University of Cardiff authored the 88-page report, saying it is intended to fill the policy gap left by the government.
'Tinned peaches and spam'

A third of Britain's food currently comes from EU countries and the report says there appears to be no government strategy to deal with any shortfall if this supply is disrupted.

"The UK food system, consumer tastes and prices have been thoroughly Europeanised," the report says. "This will be impossible to cut out or back by March 2019 without enormous consequences. The UK food system faces real challenges on food security."

The report adds: "British people often say they want to eat British, but in practice they do something rather different. About a third of UK’s food supply comes from the EU Member States. And over the last half century, tastes have changed dramatically.

"A return to a 1950s or 60’s pre-EU ‘British’ era of food is unlikely. Churchillian romantics who see Brexit as an opportunity to relive Imperial or wartime days go silent if the culinary era of tinned peaches and spam are mentioned."

The report warns that the poorest are likely to be the hardest hit by Brexit, facing a diminished supply of healthy fruit and veg as prices rise due to Brexit.

Food prices could jump by up to a fifth if the UK drops out of the European Union with no trade deal, the report also warns.

Food prices in Britain are already rising in response to the collapse in the pound last year. Food producer output price inflation rose by 5.6% in May, up from just 1.5% at the end of 2016.

Pantheon Economics says in a note sent to clients on Monday: "We think that food CPI inflation rose to 3.0% in June, from 2.1% in May... It likely will continue to rise over the coming months, reaching 5% in Q4."

The below chart from Pantheon shows just how quickly prices are rising:



As well as facing a potential food shortfall if EU trade is disrupted, Monday's report, published by Sussex University, warns that the UK's agricultural industry could suffer from the end of EU subsidies.

The report says: "The UK food system ought to be improving its resilience. It isn’t. It’s like the rabbit caught in the headlights – with no goals, no leadership, and eviscerated key ministries."

Justin King, the former CEO of supermarket Sainsbury's, warned last week that Brexit will mean "higher prices, less choice, and poorer quality" at supermarkets and said consumers at "completely in the dark" about this. Monday's report echoes King's warning.

The full report can be read in PDF format here.

[Vendetta]

The agricultural industry is largely fucked without migrant labour. It's all seasonal and relatively badly paid, which is fine if you're a Romanian who's just finished school and wants a cash injection that's valuable when you take it back to a country with lower living expenses and doesn't mind three months living in a dorm for it, but useless if you have any commitments at all. You can't pay a mortgage on a job that only exists for a quarter of the year.

Which means that the something like 80-95% migrant labour in the fruit picking industry in Britain will not be replaced by british workers, the unemployed aren't in the right place, can't move (because they'll lose their current council house with no guarantee of getting another one after three months) and the job doesn't meet their economic needs anyway.

[Thanas]

In other "good news that are guaranteed to make Britain great again", Jeremy Corbyn has come out in favor of leaving the single market. However he seeks to mirror the benefits in a free trade deal. I don't think he understands the issues and difficulties involved, but hey, good to know that he is in favour of leaving the EU. Which I had always suspected but finally he has come out and said it. And of course, now labor is debating whether it should even seek a deal for being in the customs union.

And the EU and the UK have failed to reach agreement on half the issues. Buckle up, this is going to be a wild ride.

Oh and finally the banking exodus that Theresa May vowed would not happen? Well, hundreds of companies are apparently already looking to move, with Morgan Stanley already moving part of its operations.

[Zaune]

What do you think Germany's position is going to be on English refugees?

[folti78]

What do you think Germany's position is going to be on English refugees?

Well, IIRC the EU's current stance, that they will welcome British people to move to the EU post Brexit. Especially if they are highly educated.

Of course, we'll see how the talks will go on it too.

Oh and finally the banking exodus that Theresa May vowed would not happen? Well, hundreds of companies are apparently already looking to move, with Morgan Stanley already moving part of its operations.

And that's just the last one to publicly announce it. (and just ignore that MS' infrastructure is ran by it's Hungarian subsidiary)
Pretty much every big bank and other companies have been running their own private Brexit plans since at least last November, because surprise, big companies are slow to move and they need quite a lot of time to come up with the options, make the decisions and carry those out. Especially as there are not enough infrastructure in the most prospective cities to move there. At least for now.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

According to the news, Brits working elsewhere in the EU are up shit creek without a paddle. They can choose to settle in the countries they're in, however they wouldn't be allowed to then work in any other EU nation.

[Thanas]

According to the news, Brits working elsewhere in the EU are up shit creek without a paddle. They can choose to settle in the countries they're in, however they wouldn't be allowed to then work in any other EU nation.

It pretty much is the consequence of the British "offer" to EU citizens which is only a fig leaf for a procedure that would in effect, expel most of those Europeans or force them to pay extra for private health care, pensions etc. Because you see in order to qualify under the British offer you have to document every expense you made for five to eight years. And you better have proof of residence for those years too. I mean....who the fuck keeps all their expense records for 8 years back or old rent contracts, especially if you only lived there for a few weeks or went on holiday?

So the EU is kinda hesitant to offer Brits in the EU a golden parachute because they fear that any inch they give the British in that regard will just be taken and not returned in kind.

[Thanas]

Also I will rename this thread to "Brexit and General UK politics thread".

[Zaune]

Theresa May's director of strategy resigns

I didn't think she even had a director of strategy.

[Gandalf]

Theresa May's director of strategy resigns

I didn't think she even had a director of strategy.

You don't fuck things up so spectacularly without at least some (misguided) sense of direction.

[Zaune]

Point. Although I'm not sure if the chap was a blithering idiot, a fifth columnist or moderately competent but being ignored.

[Gandalf]

I wager that like Clinton's campaign people, Wilkins believed in the strategy of "do nothing and let the unelectable opponent burn out." Sometimes that works.

[wautd]

So the Daily Mail is complaining about the longer waiting lines at the EU border checks. Because stupid Brussels and evil EU.

I guess the irony is completely lost on them that when you're an advocate for tighter border security checks, it also counts for Britisch tourists coming back home

[Thanas]

Verhofstadt is putting down the hammer on Brexit Britain.

For years the EU bent over backwards to please Britain. Now you ask for 'flexibility'?
By Guy Verhofstadt, Chief Brexit Negotiator of the European Parliament

Writing in the Telegraph this week, former Conservative leader William Hague accused the EU of giving David Davis and his team the “runaround” and showing entrenched inflexibility with regards to British membership of the EU, David Cameron’s renegotiation and the current Brexit talks. In Brussels this week, Mr Davis doubled down on these calls for more flexibility. But the facts do not support this mantra.

Since the UK joined the EU, it has enjoyed a bespoke form of membership that is unique. An opt-out from the euro, but banker to the Eurozone. An opt-out from Schengen, but access to the security databases linked to it. A blanket opt-out from Justice and Home Affairs, with the possibility to opt back into the most effective crime-fighting measures. The list goes on.

Lord Hague implied that the EU forced the UK out by refusing to agree to every one of Mr Cameron’s renegotiation requests. But I was in the room at the time of the renegotiation and substantial additional exceptions were offered – a new special status of EU membership, with an opt-out from the core principle of “ever closer union” and an emergency brake on benefits for EU workers. I even offered to work with the UK to develop a new form of associate EU membership, but UK ministers rejected it, as they argued that it would mean losing the UK’s seat at the top table. If this is not showing flexibility, I do not know what is.¨

After the referendum, we return full circle, only this time UK ministers seem to want to devise a new customs union and seek to recreate all of the EU’s structures, in order to continue to benefit from the best elements of the EU, without it being called the EU. This is not serious, fair or even possible given the negotiating time remaining – now significantly limited by the UK’s own decision to call a general election after the triggering of Article 50. The UK has informed us it is leaving, which we regret – but all we have ever asked for is that this disruptive decision is implemented in an orderly fashion and that we first agree to the divorce before planning a new future together.

Lord Hague quoted Yanis Varoufakis – an unlikely guru – and used the example of Greece to suggest EU institutions are treating the UK in a comparable manner. The British Government was adamant that no UK money be used to help Greece and I do not recall the UK challenging the position of EU finance ministers towards Mr Varoufakis at that time.

The EU can be bureaucratic but, from day one, the EU-27, the European Commission and the Parliament have been fully transparent about their negotiating positions and mandates. It is as if we are now told we are too efficient. It is in the interests of the EU for us to secure a close relationship, but we must first agree a methodology for the settling of accounts, secure the rights of EU citizens in the UK, and have a frank discussion about the Irish border. This is not a ploy to derail talks, but an inevitable consequence of the Brexit decision. It’s time for UK politicians to be more honest about the complexities Brexit creates and for them to recognise that other governments also have obligations to their own taxpayers.

The discussion papers rolled out by the UK over the summer are helpful and welcome, but only a more serious engagement with the financial consequences of Brexit and the other divorce issues will unlock discussions about the future relationship, which I hope will be a close one. Given the current pace of talks there is a real danger that sufficient progress will not be made by October. It would be a very risky strategy to burn negotiating time now in the hope that individual EU leaders will ride to the rescue; it was EU governments who defined Michel Barnier’s negotiating mandate.

As the costs of Brexit become clearer, I have no doubt the hardliners who promised the British people utopia will once again seek to blame Brussels for a lack of progress in the talks. But is a further poisoning of the atmosphere really in Britain’s interest? Our continued relationship is too important for our citizens and our firms to be jeopardised by dramatic political gestures. A divorce is never easy, but a strong future partnership is in the best interest of us all.

Guardian on the different mindsets

Don’t be fooled: Brexit Britain wants a deal. Europe just wants a clean break

As this week’s round of Brexit talks in Brussels has shown, things are not going well at all. The current stalemate is bad enough. But there will be worse to come if the British public continues to be fed a narrative in which the process boils down to good guys (from London) v bad guys (in Brussels), or in which it only takes Theresa May to soften her approach for all the bad vibes to disappear.

Brexit does sell newspapers. It may also boost or bury political careers. But it is not reassuring that both the EU and Britain have allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point that it appears as if two hostile camps are jumping at each other’s throats. Citizens could be forgiven for thinking that a battle is in progress. It isn’t. Britain is still mostly negotiating with itself.

Paying closer attention to how the continent perceives Brexit may help dissipate some of the hysteria that’s building up – Liam Fox accusing the EU of “blackmail” is the most recent example. This is not to minimise the importance of what is taking place: the severing of links built over 44 years and the breakup of a union that has existed as 28 since 2013 (Croatia was the latest to join) and is now set to shrink with one of its most important and influential members dropping out. Nor is suggesting that both the EU and Britain share responsibility for the dire state of the talks a vindication of those who propagate the view that the 27 are out to cut Britain’s interests to bits and share the spoils among themselves.

The first thing to say about the view from the continent is that it isn’t paying as much attention to Britain as Britain thinks. In France, Emmanuel Macron is fixated on his reform plans. In Germany, an election campaign is under way. In the Netherlands, everyone’s still waiting for a new cabinet to be formed. In Poland, the government is locked into a dispute with the EU over its backsliding on rule of law. The energy spent in Britain on the Brexit debate is far from replicated, or even echoed, elsewhere. That is only natural.

Then there’s a key nuance to consider. The main reason for the current impasse isn’t just that Brexit was always going to be a headache. Nor is it only the British government’s lack of clarity or strategy. It is to do with a complete mismatch of perceptions – one that remains almost unspoken.

In Britain, both the government and much of the public have come to believe that, as confrontational as it may be, Brexit is an issue that both sides have an equal interest in sorting out. It’s as if a mountain were to be climbed by two parallel teams. Whoever comes out on top will be the winner, but the mountain must be conquered by both, otherwise there will be a catastrophic cliff fall.

On the continent, an altogether different metaphor applies. Picture a ship sailing off from a port where it was well anchored, and the port’s many inhabitants wanting to make sure that ship is neither carrying cannons that it may shoot back at them, nor equipment that would make it impossible for the port to thrive.

Those on land also want to know that the departing ship’s captain won’t seek to return as if nothing had changed, and won’t demand a say in how the place develops without abiding by all of the locally agreed rules.

Indeed, the land-people believe, with good reason, that the integrity of those locally agreed rules is what defines their collective identity in the first place. It is what helped them overcome the trauma of self-destruction in a past century, and what allows them to face external and internal challenges today. It is also what their business and trade interests require in an environment of global competition, in which large blocs have a better chance of defending themselves than smaller entities do.

The departing ship is watched with both sadness and concern, but there is no rush to take on its navigation problems. That all of the land-people may not always agree on everything changes little. They’re aligned in letting the port authority discuss an orderly way out for the ship, and they’re keen to keep close contact with it in the future – but within conditions they consider non-negotiable. The point of this metaphor is that there is no common effort. Britain and the EU are not struggling with Brexit together: Britain is seeking its own route, and it is essentially alone in that quandary. On the EU side, there is only one imperative: self-preservation.

Take a moment to read the 29 April European council guidelines for Brexit negotiations. It’s all there: “no cherry-picking”, “no separate negotiations”. And this: “European integration has brought peace and prosperity to Europe and allowed for an unprecedented level and scope of cooperation in a rapidly changing world. Therefore, the union’s overall objective in these negotiations will be to preserve its interests, those of its citizens, its businesses and its member states.”

Simply put, the EU’s interests lie in preventing the UK from harming or threatening its integration. The EU is not in a race with the UK. Nor is it trying to punish anyone – which is not to say that the defence of EU red lines won’t at times be detrimental to the UK. But again, leaving was Britain’s choice. The EU did not initiate any of this. It believes the onus is on Britain, not on itself, to do what is necessary to avoid a worst-case scenario.

It is not that Michel Barnier, or other EU leaders, have not pointed this out already. The trouble is that so little seems to be trickling down into British perceptions. As a consequence, the mood is souring. The EU is an existential, not a transactional project. Finally grasping that could take Britain a long way.

[Flagg]

Sounds like the EU is acting as a fully matured and responsible adult dealing with its own issues while also talking to a UK that is at best acting as a toddler demanding to be left alone and be given an immediate diaper change at the exact same time and whining that it isn't being given the attention it thinks it deserves. Namely, all of the attention.

That's my outsider's view, anyway. If I'm wrong I'd be happy to learn how and why.

[Tribble]

EEA membership checks off pretty much everything on the Brexit list, including not being directly subject to ECJ rulings and having some limits on immigration. IMO the UK could do quite well for itself if it pursued that option. The problem is that the government wants to kick all the "foreigners" out and nothing less will do.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

That comes from May taking the only possible action by putting the most hardcore Brexiteers in charge of leaving the EU. If they get it right, she gets to take the credit. If they screw it up, she gets to blame the British Public by saying "This is what you voted for".

But then, this is the same May that believes she'll still be PM by the next election- the only reason she hasn't been forced out is because the Tories have yet to find a replacement.

[The Romulan Republic]

Why can't you guys just hurry up and have another election? I want PM Corbyn!

[Thanas]

Do you really want Boris Johnson for PM? Because that is how you get Boris Johnson for PM.

[The Romulan Republic]

Would Boris Johnson actually be worse than the current government? Honest question.

That also presumes that Boris Johnson would win, of course. Their have been enough election surprises in recent years that I don't feel confident trying to predict the outcome with certainty, but Corbyn was able to gain major ground (and hence mainstream credibility) while being undermined by much of his own party. It stands to reason he should be in a stronger position now.

But in any case, I'm reluctant to just accept an awful government because the alternative might be an even worse government. And right now, Corbyn seems to be the only one who can seriously challenge the Cons. So... Corbyn is the only remotely plausible option right now that isn't either status quo, or making things actively worse. At least, that's my sense of it. If anyone with more knowledge of British politics can present a more credible alternative, that's another matter.

[Tribble]

As I'm sure you are well aware, due to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act there are two conditions for triggering an early election:

A) If a motion for an early general election is agreed either by at least two-thirds of the whole House (including vacant seats), or without division

B) If a motion of no confidence is passed and no alternative government is confirmed by the Commons within 14 days by means of a confidence motion.

Given that there is currently a minority government it really boils down to how much the DUP supports the Tories. From what I know the DUP is pro-Brexit (though perhaps not hard-Brexit) and are apparently dead-set against Corbyn as PM, so they might not be looking at an early election anytime soon.

[Minischoles]

As I'm sure you are well aware, due to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act there are two conditions for triggering an early election:

A) If a motion for an early general election is agreed either by at least two-thirds of the whole House (including vacant seats), or without division

B) If a motion of no confidence is passed and no alternative government is confirmed by the Commons within 14 days by means of a confidence motion.

Given that there is currently a minority government it really boils down to how much the DUP supports the Tories. From what I know the DUP is pro-Brexit (though perhaps not hard-Brexit) and are apparently dead-set against Corbyn as PM, so they might not be looking at an early election anytime soon.

The DUP will never accept Corbyn as PM, so they'll continue to support the Tories to the death - as far as they're concerned Corbyn may as well be a member of the IRA, because he dared to condemn both sides actions during the Troubles rather than following the established route of conveniently ignoring the loyalists bombing and slaughtering civilians.

I don't doubt May will be replaced as PM, although the list of candidates is distressingly short - mainly the kind of morons who believe that Brexit isn't going to be a disaster. Anyone who replaces May is going to be even worse, not better - you'd either end up with Boris or Davis as PM, or god forbid someone like Mogg or Hunt.

[Zaune]

Well, this just got leaked.

Britain will end the free movement of labour immediately after Brexit and introduce restrictions to deter all but highly-skilled EU workers under detailed proposals set out in a Home Office document leaked to the Guardian.

The 82-page paper, marked as extremely sensitive and dated August 2017, sets out for the first time how Britain intends to approach the politically charged issue of immigration, dramatically refocusing policy to put British workers first.

“Put plainly, this means that, to be considered valuable to the country as a whole, immigration should benefit not just the migrants themselves but also make existing residents better off,” the paper says.

I haven't gone through all 82 pages of the thing on Scribd, and frankly I'd rather not, but it looks like they actually want to make the whole "servant underclass" thing official.

[Thanas]

This document is so fucking toxic to any productive negotiation that the only way it could be more toxic would be if it were littered with Nazi referencess.

Seriously, wtf are they thinking? Did they decide to take a massive piss in the face of the EU?

Also, stopping students from other countries to come to the UK is certainly a bright move that won't ever hurt the UK's reputation as an intellectual and research powerhouse, no Sirree.

[ray245]

This document is so fucking toxic to any productive negotiation that the only way it could be more toxic would be if it were littered with Nazi referencess.

Seriously, wtf are they thinking? Did they decide to take a massive piss in the face of the EU?

Also, stopping students from other countries to come to the UK is certainly a bright move that won't ever hurt the UK's reputation as an intellectual and research powerhouse, no Sirree.

There are those that think that European students will still desperately want to study in the UK because they think UK universities are "better". Of course, if you got into Oxbridge, you get preferential treatment.