Brexit

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David Davis has put Britain on a collision course with Brussels by insisting on the right to sign other trade deals from day one after Brexit – while remaining in a customs union. The Brexit Secretary insisted the Government would “negotiate and sign” agreements once EU withdrawal is completed, whatever the nature of any transitional period after 2019. Earlier, a former EU trade commissioner warned Brussels was likely to block Britain’s customs proposal on those terms, describing it as “very problematic”.

Brexit: David Davis set to clash with EU after insisting UK will sign trade deals while remaining in a customs union | The Independent

The former chief of staff at the Brexit Department has launched an extraordinary tirade against his old boss David Davis, saying he had witnessed him being “drunk, bullying and inappropriate”. In a stream of early-morning tweets, James Chapman made a series of astonishing claims about the man leading Britain's negotiations to leave the EU, including that he: • “Leered” over Labour MP Diane Abbott while allegedly “drunk” • Has been "working 3 day week since day one" • Keeps former Ukip leader Nigel Farage on “speed dial” • Could get easy rides in BBC interviews because of close relationships with top presenters • Conducted extraordinary outbursts against foreign leaders

David Davis’s former chief of staff launches extraordinary tirade against ‘drunk, bullying and inappropriate’ Brexit chief | The Independent

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A former chief of staff to David Davis has said Brexit is a catastrophe that must be stopped and called on centrist MPs to form a new party. James Chapman, who worked for the Brexit secretary for a year as the Department for Exiting the European Union was set up, suggested the new party should be called the Democrats and claimed some “very interesting people” wanted to be involved.

UK needs new party to stop 'catastrophic' Brexit, says ex-David Davis aide | Politics | The Guardian

Britain is paying the European Union less than half the sum claimed by Brexit campaigners, new official figures have revealed. The UK’s net contribution has fallen to its lowest level for five years, at just £8.1bn in 2016-17 – or about £156m a week. The sum is under half the £350m-a-week claimed by Brexiteers during the EU referendum campaign, which they promised to divert to the cash-strapped NHS. Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign, was widely criticised for printing a slogan on the side of its battle bus that said: “We send the EU £350m a week.”

UK is paying the EU less than half the sum claimed by Brexit campaigners, reveal new figures | The Independent

The number of professionals seeking a job in the U.K.'s financial capital is down 33 percent year on year, while the number of jobs available has shrunk 11 percent, due to the uncertainty caused by Brexit. The City of London risks losing jobs, warns recruitment consultancy Morgan McKinley. This comes as the U.K. government's proposes a temporary customs agreement with the EU after Brexit.

Brexit: City of London is hemorrhaging jobs, warns UK’s Morgan McKinley

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Our report, From Project Fear to Project Prosperity, estimates that the gains from a full Brexit will be £135bn – around a 7% boost to GDP, with the reforms also raising the longer term growth rate. There are four elements in the calculation: 1) free trade, either via free trade agreements with the EU and the rest of the world, or if those are sticky via unilateral moves to remove our trade barriers 2) UK-run pragmatic regulation to replace the EU’s intrusive single-market regulation of our whole economy 3) our net EU contribution and 4) the cost to the taxpayer of the subsidy paid to unskilled EU immigrants, which we estimate at £3,500 per adult. Predictably, our estimates have triggered howls of protest and derision from the economists who aligned themselves with “project fear”. However that project was founded on two main planks: the assumption that Brexit UK would pursue protectionist and other illiberal policies, and the use of a “gravity” trade model..

Will Brexit boost or hurt the economy? | Patrick Minford and Molly Scott Cato | Opinion | The Guardian

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Looking at what would happen to the industry if Portugal were to leave the EU, Santos found that "a 25% increase in trade costs is expected to reduce innovation by half and productivity by 4% for an export-oriented industry composed of small companies, as in the Portuguese moulds industry." "The reason for this decline is the fall in market access and a very competitive environment. Since innovation is subject to large ‘sunk costs’, the reduced market access generates a reduction in the gains from innovation. This reduction is larger for industries in more competitive markets," the paper's summary argues. "Trade liberalisation allows the best firms to exploit the economies of scale and innovate," Santos writes in the paper.

Royal Economic Society paper on the impact of leaving a trading area - Business Insider

Over the past 10 days David Davis’s Brexit department has published seven so-called partnership papers: important documents covering a wide range of subjects, from customs and Northern Ireland to civil justice and, most recently, disputes mechanisms, including the role of the European Court of Justice. According to the introductory blurb inside each, these papers are all about forming a bespoke post-Brexit partnership with the EU. Yet, by intention or accident, they do something very different. Together they make a case for sticking with the existing partnership as it stands, or at least with its key arrangements, such as the single market and customs union.

Piece by piece, the case for severing Britain’s ties to Europe is falling apart | Martin Kettle | Opinion | The Guardian

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Brexit negotiations have hit a wall after the UK and EU negotiators failed to make any progress on how big Britain's withdrawal bill should be during "intense" talks, according to various reports.  The British team told their EU counterparts that there was no legal basis for much of the money they have claimed is required, while the EU has protested that Britain has failed to establish a clear position on the matter. On Wednesday Barnier said: "To be flexible you need two points – our point and their point. We need to know their position and then I can be flexible." This came after the UK negotiating team laid out their arguments on the issue of the divorce bill with a 23-slide presentation and 11-page document over three hours, and said that they cannot reach a figure until October at the earliest. Britain's financial obligations to the EU, or the "divorce bill" as it's more commonly known, is one of the issues that the EU wants to finalise before talks on future relations take place, alongside citizens' rights and the Irish border. The British side, on the other hand, claims that it is impossible to make "sufficient progress" on preliminary issues like the divorce bill without at the same time addressing what the future UK-EU relationship will look like. "There was total amazement," a source within the EU told the Telegraph newspaper, describing discussions between British and EU negotiators.  "Everyone was completely flabbergasted that this young man from Whitehall was saying that the EU's preparation on the financial settlement was 'inadequate'. It did not go down well."

EU 'flabbergasted' after Britain reportedly spent 3 hours lecturing officials about the Brexit divorce bill - Business Insider

The EU's Brexit negotiator has said he sees the process as an opportunity to "teach the British people and others what leaving the EU means". Michel Barnier said he would never resort to blackmail but saw it as his job to "educate" the UK about the price it would pay for leaving the EU "club". The UK has hit back, saying the EU does "not want to talk about the future". Brexit Secretary David Davis said it was "frightened" and the UK would not be bounced into a divorce bill deal. The latest salvos come after a week of talks in Brussels about the UK's withdrawal from the EU - scheduled to take place in March 2019 - which increased tensions between the two sides.

Brexit: UK to be 'educated' about consequences, says Barnier - BBC News

So mutual lectures, no progress, the clock is ticking..

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Senior government figures have said that the UK does not have the capacity to renegotiate dozens of trade deals that already exist between the EU and third countries. Instead, they are planning to draw up copycat deals to those that already exist, in an attempt to replicate an agreement struck by Theresa May in Japan last week. May and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, signed a joint statement that committed their countries to working towards an economic partnership agreement (EPA) as an “immediate priority”. The statement said: “As the UK exits the EU we will work quickly to establish a new economic partnership between Japan and the UK based on the final terms of the EPA.” Advertisement May hopes such instant copycat deals – termed “cut-and-paste Brexit” by opponents – could be reached with other nations to help secure continuity and confidence.

UK 'does not have capacity to strike new trade deals after Brexit' | Politics | The Guardian

An unusual judge-led drive to persuade the UK government to resolve the Brexit crisis by joining the European Free Trade Association (Efta), the so-called Norway model, is to be promoted by the head of the Efta court himself in a series of speeches in London this month. The president of the Efta court, Carl Baudenbacher, has also held talks with Japanese government officials in Tokyo to discuss how Efta might help create the predictable Brexit that Japanese industry craves. His visit coincided with that of Theresa May, the UK prime minister, to Tokyo last week where she was pressed to set out how a Brexit Britain will in future relate legally to the single market. Both remain and some Eurosceptic MPs are arguing the UK could either join Efta as a permanent solution to its post-Brexit conundrum, or during the two to four-year transition now accepted by the cabinet and opposition.

Efta court president suggests UK should join Efta to end Brexit crisis | World news | The Guardian

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The decision of the British people to leave the European Union could be reversed next year if France and Germany agree that the UK can take control over immigration while staying in the EU single market, the former Labour cabinet minister Lord Adonis said on Sunday. With concern over the government’s handling of Brexit growing ahead of a key parliamentary vote on Monday, the peer said Angela Merkel, who is expected to be re-elected as German chancellor later this month, and French president Emmanuel Macron could well make such an offer if they believe it could mean the UK remaining in the EU. Writing in the Observer, Adonis said he believes a majority of peers in the House of Lords will support an amendment to the EU withdrawal bill – now passing through the Commons – requiring another referendum before Brexit takes effect, with the options being to accept the deal on offer, or stay in the EU.

Adonis’s intervention also comes amid signs that opponents of a hard Brexit in all the main parties are ready to work together to amend the bill, both to ensure that the option of staying inside the single market is kept open, and that parliament, at the very least, has a binding vote on the final deal before Brexit happens in March 2019. The Observer understands that meetings about how to thwart a hard Brexit have already taken place between senior Labour figures, the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Nationalist party MPs and pro-EU Tories.

EU immigration offer could lead to Brexit reversal, claims Adonis | Politics | The Guardian

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Johnson argued in his article that Britain should not continue to make payments to the EU after Brexit and claimed that staying in the single market or customs union would in effect betray the referendum vote. He said Britain would “keep environmental and social protections that are fair and wise”, but get rid of other EU regulations that, he claimed, cost between 4% and 7% of GDP. He also called on the chancellor, Philip Hammond, to make changes to the fiscal system. “We should seize the opportunity of Brexit to reform our tax system,” he said, giving the example of cutting VAT on tampons.

Boris Johnson: we will still claw back £350m a week after Brexit | Politics | The Guardian

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That £350m a week will pour into our NHS (Johnson) – until it doesn’t. That the UK will negotiate a trade pact with Angela Merkel in Berlin (David Davis) – until it turns out to be Michel Barnier in Brussels. But never mind, the deal with Brussels will be “one of the easiest in human history” (Liam Fox) – until it isn’t. That, even with no deal looking more and more likely, the government needs draw up no concrete plans, nor set aside any contingency funds (Philip Hammond). That nothing will change for Hungarian or Polish nationals in the UK (Daniel Hannan) – until they are used as human bargaining chips. That Britain can sign 40 trade deals the morning after leaving the European Union (Liam Fox)– all 40 of which Britain already has through the EU.

Who’s to blame for Brexit’s fantasy politics? The experts, of course | Aditya Chakrabortty | Opinion | The Guardian

Start with this: everyone knows there’s a nursing shortage, but until a new report from the authoritative King’s Fund, no one knew it was this bad. The fund itself sounds shocked to find the number of nurses in the NHS is actually falling, year on year. Despite repeated ministerial promises, there are fewer nurses this April than last April, and the trend has continued since....

The 96% plunge in EU nurses joining the UK register following the Brexit vote could have been prevented had Theresa May rushed to embrace all NHS staff with a welcome to stay for ever. New tougher language tests for foreign nurses were badly timed to add to a perfect recruitment storm. The report finds: “The number of NHS staff leaving as a result of ill-health and work-life balance has also increased sharply over the last few years.” In a vicious downward spiral of overwork, covering for about 40,000 unfilled vacancies is the reason given by 44% of those who quit. Hunt just announced an end to the 1% pay cap – but admits the money must come from squeezing “productivity improvements”: fewer nurses per ward is a statistical productivity gain.

While all eyes look to Brexit, our NHS is about to collapse | Polly Toynbee | Opinion | The Guardian

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A Labour MP has said there are “real questions” about how much Arron Banks – the entrepreneur who bankrolled Brexit – is worth as he called on the government to investigate the possible role played by “dark money” in the EU referendum. Speaking in parliament, Ben Bradshaw said there was “widespread concern over foreign and particularly Russian interference in western democracies”. He described as “very worrying” a series of investigative reports published this week by the Open Democracy website into the funding of the Leave campaign. The money given by Banks to Leave.EU in the run-up to the referendum was the biggest donation in British political history. The Bristol-based businessman says he contributed almost £9m in cash, loans and services to pro-Brexit causes. It is impossible to determine what impact – if any – his donations had on the result.

MP calls for inquiry into Arron Banks and 'dark money' in EU referendum | Politics | The Guardian