Brexit

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BNP Paribas SA’s chairman said London’s financial district will undergo large changes following the U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union as banks operating there prepare to secure access to the bloc. “I don’t see London remaining as it is; there will be change and it will be significant,” Jean-Adrien Lemierre said in a speech at the Paris Europlace financial forum in Tokyo on Monday. “Banks are already making quiet moves in preparation.”

Big Changes to City of London Are Ahead After Brexit: BNP Chairman - Bloomberg

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Large banks in Britain want the UK government to allow their industry to remain subject to EU laws for up to five years after Brexit, a move likely to enrage eurosceptics who want to break away from the bloc's legal system as soon as possible. The banks - international players - are also pressing the government to allow the European Court of Justice to rule on decisions related to their businesses during that period, according to a document reviewed by Reuters... The document warns of the potential shock to the British and European economy from a loss of critical financial services if banks do not secure a transition phase beyond the two-year withdrawal period that will begin when the government invokes Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty. If no transition deal is agreed, there is a risk that some banks may not be able to move parts of their operations out of Britain or set up new British subsidiaries in time, the document says, running the risk that the banks may have to halt their EU business activities abruptly... It would normally take banks as long as three years to relocate operations, according to the document, but due to the large number of firms seeking to do this simultaneously regulators may be flooded with requests, slowing down the process.

Banks want to be subject to EU laws for five years in post-Brexit deal

The document records Mr Davis predicting that the Article 50 exit clause will be triggered “in very late March” – and that opponents in Parliament will “run out of speakers”. And it underlines earlier hints that, if the EU proves “hostile” in the negotiations, Britain will cut taxes and regulations to lure overseas investors. It has previously been suggested that corporation tax will be cut to 10 per cent – despite warnings that the EU will inevitably respond by slapping fresh restrictions on trade. The memo – of a meeting with the City of London Corporation – lays bare how Britain’s opening gambit will be the “have our cake and eat it” approach, in Boris Johnson’s much-mocked phrase.

Brexit: Leaked memo confirms David Davis will go into talks with 'have our cake and eat it' plan | The Independent

Crucially, the memo states: “Will trigger Article 50 with an opening approach of open access on all services and goods without tariffs in the UK.” Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “David Davis is completely deluded to think you can leave the single market while maintaining full access to it. “He should be listening to the concerns of businesses that trade with Europe every day instead of sticking his head in the sand. “The reality is that a hard Brexit would hit jobs and mean less tax revenue for our schools and NHS.”

Brexit: Leaked memo confirms David Davis will go into talks with 'have our cake and eat it' plan | The Independent

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What happens when 17 million people get the feeling they’ve been cheated? That will be the most profound question in British politics, not just in 2017 but for many years to come. As the broken promises of Brexit pile up one on top of the other, so that they are visible from Sunderland, from Great Yarmouth, from Newport, what will the leave voters do then? The pledges I mean aren’t the ones about how £350m will flood each week into the NHS, or those others that came out waving a Pinnochio-sized proboscis. I’m thinking of the promises that went far deeper. The vow to “take back control”. To stop being the human punchline to someone else’s macroeconomic joke. To – as our north of England editor Helen Pidd wrote last week – no longer live on crumbs, while others in London enjoy entire loaves. The Brexiteers were explicitly offering voters a once-in-a-lifetime shot at changing the status quo. And before embarking on what has otherwise been a stiff-backed, fixed-grin, try-hard few months at No 10, Theresa May got it, promising “people voted for change. And a change is going to come.””

A Brexit betrayal is coming – but who will get the blame? | Aditya Chakrabortty | Opinion | The Guardian

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What happens when 17 million people get the feeling they’ve been cheated? That will be the most profound question in British politics, not just in 2017 but for many years to come. As the broken promises of Brexit pile up one on top of the other, so that they are visible from Sunderland, from Great Yarmouth, from Newport, what will the leave voters do then? The pledges I mean aren’t the ones about how £350m will flood each week into the NHS, or those others that came out waving a Pinnochio-sized proboscis. I’m thinking of the promises that went far deeper. The vow to “take back control”. To stop being the human punchline to someone else’s macroeconomic joke. To – as our north of England editor Helen Pidd wrote last week – no longer live on crumbs, while others in London enjoy entire loaves. The Brexiteers were explicitly offering voters a once-in-a-lifetime shot at changing the status quo. And before embarking on what has otherwise been a stiff-backed, fixed-grin, try-hard few months at No 10, Theresa May got it, promising “people voted for change. And a change is going to come.””

A Brexit betrayal is coming – but who will get the blame? | Aditya Chakrabortty | Opinion | The Guardian

Maybe the more definitive paragraph follows:

"Except change, in our new prime minister’s dictionary, just means more of the same. Admittedly, it is only six months into Year Zero and Britain is yet to start disentangling itself from Europe. But whatever is promised – hard or soft, red white or blue – it’s clear that the terms of Brexit will be dictated by Donald Tusk, Angela Merkel and the other 27 members of the EU, rather than by our dream team of May, Boris Johnson and David Davis. We can also see much else of what the next few years will bring. The economic plan for the rest of this decade has been laid out by Philip Hammond, and it equals austerity-lite – but for even longer. The forecasts for wages and living standards are in, and they indicate Britain will suffer its first lost decade since Karl Marx was alive."

My thoughts immediately go to the nominations and appointments by P.E. Trump. While wildly proclaiming how bad our generals are he promises to appoint generals to head our civilian defense and intelligence departments. Following a campaign railing at every stump against Clinton's taking speaker fees from Goldman Sachs Trump starts and continues to hire GS executives to fill major cabinet posts. And then there is Obamacare Insurance associations are finally speaking up about the coming debacle should Trump fulfills his campaign promise to demolish Obamacare, leaving many millions of Trump voters and their families without insurance even while promoting an unfunded promise to continue coverage of expensive pre-existing conditions.  Just how long will it be until Kentucky voters realize that "Kentucky Care" is just the local label for Obamacare. And then the nomination of creationist Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency following Trump's campaign promises in New Hampshire to provide "crystal clean air and water" while simulatneously pledging to abolish the USEPA.

God only knows where this all is going but the US certainly appears to be following Brittain down the path of sophistry and a lost decade. Like the Brexiteers, Trump's core supporters are in position to be hurt the most.

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Yes, we seem to live in the age of the spectacle, one big bait and switch..

http://rightwingers.org/forums/thread-1311.html

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A post-Brexit UK-EU trade deal might take 10 years to finalise and still fail, Britain's ambassador to the EU has privately told the government. The BBC understands Sir Ivan Rogers warned ministers that the European consensus was that a deal might not be done until the early to mid-2020s. He also cautioned that an agreement could be rejected ultimately by other EU members' national parliaments. PM Theresa May said she wanted Brexit to be "smooth and orderly"... It is also understood he suggested that the expectation among European leaders was that a free trade deal, rather than continued membership of the single market, was the likely option for the UK after Brexit. Sir Ivan's private advice contrasts with ministers publicly insisting a deal can be done in the two years allowed by the triggering of Article 50 - the formal start of the process of leaving the EU.

Brexit trade deal could take 10 years, says UK's ambassador - BBC News

The vote for Brexit was fuelled by poorer voters feeling they had very little control over immigration, coupled with a more general mistrust of politicians and officials, according to new research into attitudes before the referendum. The study, carried out for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, presents a wider narrative of voters being increasingly motivated by emotion, rather than economic choices, something the researchers said could point to a future in which populist parties thrive.

Poorer voters' worries on immigration fuelled Brexit vote, study finds | Politics | The Guardian

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Japanese financial institutions have warned that they need clarity on the UK's future relationship with the EU or they will begin moving some functions from London within six months. Executives from Japanese groups including investment banks Nomura and Daiwa Capital Markets laid out their position at a “frank” meeting on December 1 with the UK City minister Simon Kirty and Mark Garnier, international trade minister with responsibility for financial services, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting.

Japanese banks warn of Brexit moves from London

Yet, instead of seeing the losers’ anger, we are witnessing a novel and graceless phenomenon: victors’ rage. Supporters of Brexit shout about “enemies of the people” and denounce “Remoaners” with all the venom of men and women who have lost rather than won the biggest political struggle of their lives. They demand their opponents pass loyalty tests, as if we were living in a dictatorship. They do not allow you to say the referendum result betrayed our country’s best interests. They instruct you to play the hypocrite and pretend to believe what you know to be untrue. Be warned. Refuse to go along with the political correctness of the right and you will feel “the people’s” wrath.

Leavers are angry, for their lies will return to haunt them | Nick Cohen | Opinion | The Guardian

Across the west, the populist right is as much a countercultural movement as a political movement. Its supporters are closer to satirists than thinkers and doers with practical plans to change society. The right feasts on undoubted hypocrisies and evils in the liberal mainstream. It picks them apart and examines their ghoulish contradictions. Like its counterparts on the left, it then rapidly loses itself in the magic world of conspiracy theory. If you genuinely believe a sinister force has organised 97% of climate scientists to lie about global warming, or Brussels has bribed economists across the world to lie about the danger of Brexit, you are not just assuming mass mendacity at an astonishing level. You are also assuming “the establishment” is capable of the astonishing level of organisation required to persuade tens of thousands to lie.

Leavers are angry, for their lies will return to haunt them | Nick Cohen | Opinion | The Guardian

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Theresa May has set herself on a collision course with Parliament after repeatedly refusing to commit to giving MPs a vote on her final Brexit deal. In a committee hearing which saw MPs repetitively asking her the same question, she would only say MPs would "comment on and discuss" the issue. She also said she expected to broker both a withdrawal deal and set future trade arrangements with the EU within two years after triggering Article 50.

Brexit: Theresa May risks clash with Parliament after refusing to commit to MP vote on final deal | The Independent

“The notion that a country can have complete regulatory sovereignty while engaging in comprehensive free trade with partners is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of free trade. Modern FTAs involve extensive regulatory harmonisation in order to eliminate non-tariff barriers, and surveillance and dispute resolution arrangements to monitor and enforce implementation. The liberalisation of trade thus requires states to agree to limit the exercise of their sovereignty. The four frameworks considered in this report all require different trade-offs between market access and the exercise of sovereignty. As a general rule, the deeper the trade relationship, the greater the loss of sovereignty.”

There you have, in one calm and measured paragraph, the contradiction at the heart of the argument put forward by Liam Fox and others that leaving the EU will allow the UK to become a ‘champion of free trade’. You cannot be a champion of free trade, and have sovereignty in the form of taking back control. It is not a contradiction, of course, if you are happy to accept the regulatory standards of the US, China or India. That appears to be the position of Leave leaders like MP Jacob Rees Mogg. Ellie Mae O’Hagan spells out what this may mean in practice. Lead in toys - bring them in so we can sign a trade agreement with China. And you can be sure that this will be the nature of the discussion every time a trade deal is signed. In each case we will be told that we have to accept this drop in regulatory standards, because British export jobs are on the line.

mainly macro: Understanding free trade

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U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is increasingly isolated as her demands to control all areas of policy alienate key colleagues, according to more than a dozen officials who worry tensions will undermine planning for Brexit. Speaking anonymously because the subject is delicate, many of the government figures said an early period of goodwill toward May had given way to division and resentment, leading to policy mistakes that had to be hastily corrected. Much of that stems from the influence wielded by her joint chiefs-of-staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, the people said.

Iron Grip of Theresa May Said to Cut Her Off From Key Colleagues - Bloomberg

The pound may have recovered from its post-Brexit lows, but it's set to face another round of Brexit heat, analysts said. In the wake of the U.K.'s late June vote to exit the European Union (EU), the pound tumbled to as low as $1.1450 in an October flash crash. But the currency recovered from those 30-year lows in the wake of Donald Trump's surprise U.S. election win, reaching levels above $1.27 in early December. That was up from levels under $1.24 before the election results, potentially on expectations that the president-elect could pursue a "fast-track" trade deal with the U.K.

Why sterling may get another pounding from Brexit

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Most people now want to remain in the European Union in parts of the UK that voted overwhelmingly for Brexit, according to opinion surveys by several different local newspapers. The Wolverhampton-based Express and Star newspaper became the fourth outlet to publish results showing a complete u-turn in public opinion on Saturday, with 60 per cent of respondents saying they would now vote to stay in the EU. Three other regional publications in the north east and the West Midlands recorded similar findings.  But analysts have said the surveys were not conducted scientifically and are at odds with more reputable national polls, suggesting the former may not be accurate.

Brexit opinion surveys show huge swing to Remain in UK regions that voted Leave | The Independent