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Britain’s ambassador to the EU has quit his post less than a month after it was revealed that he said a post-Brexit trade deal with the bloc could take up to a decade to achieve. Government sources confirmed that Sir Ivan Rogers, one of the UK’s most experienced EU diplomats, told staff on Tuesday that he was stepping down early from his role, just a few months before Britain begins its formal exit negotiations with the EU.
UK ambassador to EU quits amid Brexit row | Politics | The Guardian
The sudden resignation of Britain’s ambassador to the EU has prompted angry accusations from remain supporters that officials who express caution about the Brexit process risk being pressured out of their jobs Sir Ivan Rogers’ resignation so close to the start of Brexit negotiations at the end of March amounted to a “wilful and total destruction of EU expertise”, according to the former top civil servant at the Treasury. In an unusually candid intervention, Lord MacPherson, who was permanent secretary from 2005 until last year, said Rogers’ decision was a huge loss and that he was the latest in a string of EU experts to be frozen out, describing the decision as “amateurish”.
UK ambassador's exit is 'wilful destruction of EU expertise' | Politics | The Guardian
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01-11-2017, 12:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-11-2017, 12:11 AM by admin.)
Brexit poses a risk to the global financial system and could spark more than 230,000 job losses in the financial sector, senior City figures have warned MPs as they called for clarity on the UK’s future relationship with the EU. Xavier Rolet, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), warned that Brexit could have an impact on “unimaginably large” contracts which are cleared through the City and which might need to be transferred to the 27 remaining EU member states. The HSBC chairman, Douglas Flint, also giving evidence to the Treasury select committee, said that while banks did not want to move activities outside London they had to plan for the worst.
Hard Brexit threatens global financial system, City chiefs tell MPs | Business | The Guardian
Unfortunately, she ended up throwing up more uncertainty and a lack of a concrete plan that is needed right now. She heavily hinted at a "hard Brexit" —Britain focusing on immigration control and saying that "leaving the EU does not mean retaining bits of membership." While also saying in the same interview with Sky News that she "wants the best possible deal for trading with and operating within the single European market." Britain needed clarity over Brexit talk preparation, not a cloud of fog shrouding it further.
Theresa May Sky News speech: Highlights, analysis, Brexit, Article 50 - Business Insider
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The Netherlands will block any EU trade deal with the UK unless it signs up to tough tax avoidance regulations preventing it from becoming an attractive offshore haven for multinationals and the rich, the deputy prime minister of the country has said. Lodewijk Asscher, who was recently elected leader of the Dutch Labour party (PvdA), which is currently a partner in the ruling coalition government, has written to socialist leaders across the continent stipulating his party’s red lines in coming talks.
Netherlands 'will block UK-EU deal without tax avoidance measures' | Politics | The Guardian
Theresa May is to announce that the government is prepared to accept a clean break with the EU in its negotiations for the UK’s departure. In a speech to be delivered on Tuesday, the prime minister will make clear that she is willing to sacrifice the UK’s membership of the single market and customs union in order to bring an end to freedom of movement.
Theresa May: UK is prepared to accept hard Brexit | Politics | The Guardian
A handy primer:
But what stance will the prime minister take on whether the UK remains in the single market and customs union? Downing Street says reports Mrs May will signal pulling out of both are nothing more than "speculation". Here are the differences between a free trade area, a single market and a customs union.
Free trade area, single market, customs union - what's the difference? - BBC News
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Let’s start with the outcome we are trying to achieve. For the left, it should be to minimise the economic break with Europe and restore popular consent for migration. Britain should apply to join the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and, through it, to remain inside the European Economic Area (EEA). Those who say that means accepting complete freedom of movement are, not for the first time, misleading us. Advertisement Freedom of movement has always been a “qualified right” – not an absolute one: that is, constrained by national conditions. Plus Article 112 of the EEA treaty allows us to suspend freedom of movement, for an unspecified period and unilaterally, due to “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”. Well, we have a serious societal difficulty: we have lost consent for high inward migration, and we need to regain it.
We can escape Brexit doom with one small tweak to free movement | Opinion | The Guardian
Britain risks a “disorderly crash landing” if it assumes it can safely walk away from troublesome Brexit talks, business leaders have said, in a last-ditch plea for a negotiated settlement with Europe. As Theresa May prepares to reveal an uncompromising set of UK objectives on Tuesday, pressure is mounting on the prime minister to take a firm line with other member states and ultimately fall back on World Trade Organisation tariffs if no deal can be agreed. But the CBI is calling on politicians to wake up to the limitations of the WTO and dangers of a disorderly Brexit, despite the long and painful concessions that may be necessary if the UK is to obtain a replacement free-trade agreement when it leaves the single market.
UK risks 'disorderly crash landing' on Brexit, business leaders warn | Politics | The Guardian
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01-17-2017, 09:23 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-17-2017, 09:25 AM by admin.)
Hard Brexit! If this is true, it's amazing stuff. The referendum was only won with a tiny margin and if the public was aware of what is going to happen, it's not likely it would have been won at all.
The U.K. is likely to pull out of the European Union’s single market for goods and services and seek a completely new trading relationship with the bloc, Prime Minister Theresa May will say Tuesday as she sets out her plan for Brexit. In a blow to business groups pressing for the closest possible links to Europe, May will use a speech in London to explicitly say she expects Britain to leave the single market and overhaul its links to the customs union, according to a person familiar with the matter. She has no interest in a “partial” or “associate” membership of the EU or “anything that leaves us half-in, half-out,” according to extracts released by her office.
May Ready to Announce Britain Will Leave EU Single Market - Bloomberg
On Monday night, May’s office said she will announce 12 key objectives for the negotiations, which are likely to include gaining full control over immigration, restoring power over lawmaking to the U.K. Parliament, and ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over British laws. While she will say she expects Britain to leave the single market, May will be less definitive about the European customs union after Brexit, indicating a hybrid, partly-in, partly-out model may be the best option, according to the person familiar with the matter.
May Ready to Announce Britain Will Leave EU Single Market - Bloomberg
As a full member of the EU customs union, Britain is legally unable to strike its own free trade agreements with other countries. While the details of May’s customs plan will not be outlined in full, her direction will be clear: towards a deal that allows the U.K. to trade freely with countries around the world.
May Ready to Announce Britain Will Leave EU Single Market - Bloomberg
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Without favoured treatment, many exports to the EU could face tariffs in some cases of 10% or a lot more. Robust customs barriers will add significant export costs and expensive delays, and many exports of services will be blocked once we abandon Europe’s single regulatory rulebook. This means not just a hard Brexit but a destructive and harmful rupture that will, over time, reduce trade, shrink manufacturing investment and destroy jobs. May will claim that this can be mitigated by special new trade arrangements between Britain and the EU. There are indeed options: an agreement that eliminates tariffs; a customs agreement to limit trade delays; mutual recognition of standards and regulations to smooth trade in services; and possibly an investment protection agreement. A transitional period could tide Britain over the lengthy time all this will take to negotiate and implement. But none of these will fall into place just because we want them to.
Theresa May’s Brexit focus should be on the least harmful way of leaving | Peter Mandelson | Opinion | The Guardian
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After Mrs May's speech Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: "Hard Brexit was never on the ballot paper. Ripping us out of the single market was not something proposed to the British people. This is a theft of democracy."
Brexit: UK to leave single market, says Theresa May - BBC News
Does this mean, for example, that we will soon be outside of the European Aviation Safety Agency, which certifies aircraft before they are allowed to fly? The European Medicines Agency, which ensures all medicines in the EU market are safe and effective? Or Europol and Eurojust – agencies I worked closely with when I was the director of public prosecutions and I know have been vital in tackling cross-border crime and terrorism? If so, this would be profoundly counterproductive. This uncertainty is compounded by the prime minister’s threat to “change the basis of Britain’s economic model” if she fails to get the agreement she wants. We have to assume this is not a hollow threat and that the prime minister is willing to rip up many of the economic policies and principles that have guided successive UK governments for decades. This brings into question her commitment to a whole host of social, economic and workplace rights. There is no mandate for the government to do this and it would – contrary to the prime minister’s belief – be an act of self-harm for Britain, and diminish our place in the world..
Theresa May’s Brexit plan has potentially disastrous gaps in it | Keir Starmer | Opinion | The Guardian
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Theresa May's approach to Brexit risks making her the “unwitting tool” of aggressive nationalists seeking to tear the European Union apart, former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is warning. Speaking ahead of the Prime Minister's talks with Donald Trump in Washington on Friday, Mr Clegg will name the new US president as part of an “axis of aggressive nationalism” stretching from the White House to the Kremlin and taking in hardline Brexiteers in the UK and populist parties in countries across Europe.
Brexit: Theresa May 'unwitting tool' of hardline nationalists determined to destroy EU, says Nick Clegg | The Independent
”Her vision for a hard Brexit will pull us out of the European single market, the world's largest borderless marketplace - which was, let's not forget, designed by the British and championed by the Conservative prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher. That is the wrong choice for Britain's interests.“
Brexit: Theresa May 'unwitting tool' of hardline nationalists determined to destroy EU, says Nick Clegg | The Independent
The boss of Goldman Sachs told Prime Minister Theresa May that a “hard Brexit” would help European cities such as Frankfurt and Paris compete for London’s position as the continent’s dominant financial centre. Lloyd Blankfein “talked tough” and said there was “no reason why European financial centres can’t set up as effective rivals”, the Financial Times reported, citing sources briefed on a private meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. Mr Blankfein reportedly expressed bemusement over how Ms May treats finance like any other industry, despite its outsized contribution to the UK economy and to tax revenues.
Brexit: Goldman Sachs boss warns Theresa May to protect City or lose out to Paris and Frankfurt | The Independent
Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein said New York is “already a bit of a gainer” from Brexit as the Wall Street firm slows its previous policy of moving operations to London. “Operating our business to maximise our global potential -- we were trying to get as much into the UK as we could,” Blankfein said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Thursday with John Micklethwait at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We’re slowing down that decision” to avoid having to move businesses twice, he said.
Brexit: New York 'already a gainer' from UK's decision, says Goldman Sachs CEO | The Independent
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The European commission’s Brexit negotiators must strike a “workable” deal with Theresa May’s government to protect the City of London or the economies of the remaining member states will be damaged, a leaked EU report warns. The document – which has been seen by the Guardian – describes it as critical for the economic health of the remaining member states that the current financial eco-system is not hit in the coming Brexit negotiations.
EU will lose out from bad Brexit deal on City, says leaked report | Business | The Guardian
The paper, drawn up by officials working for the European parliament’s powerful committee on economic and monetary affairs (Econ), warns that UK-based financial services account for 40% of Europe’s assets under management and 60% of its capital markets business. “And UK-based banks provide more than £1.1tn of loans to the other EU member states,” the Econ secretariat’s paper notes.
EU will lose out from bad Brexit deal on City, says leaked report | Business | The Guardian
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The promises of riches after Britain departs were Alice in Wonderland fantasies, he told MPs. “Apparently you follow the rabbit down a hole and you emerge in a wonderland where suddenly countries around the world are queueing up to give us trading advantages and access to their markets that previously we have never been able to achieve as part of the EU. “Nice men” such as Presidents Trump and Erdoğan of Turkey – both of whom were visited by the prime minister last month – were impatient to do deals with us despite their history of protectionism. “No doubt somewhere there is a hatter holding a tea party with a dormouse in the teapot.”
Ken Clarke on Brexit: ‘I’ve never seen anything as mad or chaotic as this’ | Politics | The Guardian
In addition, there is the political cost, he says. “Every US president until the present one has found us more valuable because we are the leading bridge into the EU. We carry clout because we are one of the two or three big members of the EU. We are giving all that up as well. We are a trading nation and we have political interests in all parts of the world, where we will find our voice and our clout substantially diminished. I don’t think President Putin will bother to pick up the phone to Theresa May if he’s busy. We don’t matter so much any more.” As for Trump, “It’s possible that for some reason he wants to have a trade deal with us while he’s busy repudiating deals with everybody else but I don’t ... think ... so.”
Ken Clarke on Brexit: ‘I’ve never seen anything as mad or chaotic as this’ | Politics | The Guardian
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