Are we sleep-walking out of Europe ?

In a country where it matters little what a man says but rather more how he says it, Don, I'd ask him rather than 'demand'.

The trouble is, he's not necessarily in parliament to represent your views, or for that matter, those of any of his other constituents.

Best, Chris

Christopher_M posted:

In a country where it matters little what a man says but rather more how he says it, Don, I'd ask him rather than 'demand'.

The trouble is, he's not necessarily in parliament to represent your views, or for that matter, those of any of his other constituents.

Best, Chris

It is more of a "positive ask" rather than a "demand".

I am inclined to agree with your second paragraph, assuming that he is there to consider and act in the best interests of the UK. Unfortunately, I think he still needs a bit of help in recognising what the best interests of the UK are, even though in his response to my previous letter he shared my view that Brexit will be a disaster. The majority of those who voted in West Berkshire already know what's best (at least IMHO !)

btw, he doesn't need the money as per an MP's salary. He is reportedly the richest MP in Parliament.

The government says it does not recognise a leaked memo that claims it has no overall plan for Brexit. The government said the leaked memo - entitled "Brexit Update" of 7 November - was written by an un-named consultant and was not a Cabinet Office document. (so it's true then !)

The memo warns that Whitehall is working on 500 Brexit-related projects and could need 30,000 extra staff. It also highlights divisions within the cabinet over Brexit strategy. (still, at £50k pa the cost of this additional staff looks peanuts at only £30m pw............)

Transport Secretary, Mr Grayling said the document was not a government memo and rejected its contents, describing the Brexit project as a team effort he added "I do not know what 30,000 people would do in this process." (does he mean they will have 30,000 disorganised staff ?)

The memo criticises Mrs May, who it says is "acquiring a reputation of drawing in decisions and details to settle matters herself". (I've suggested a few times she is looking more like a dictator every day)

The document also identifies cabinet splits between Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit Secretary David Davis and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox on one side, and Chancellor Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark on the other. (It is reassuring to know that at least some form of discussion is taking place)

It says: "Every department has developed a 'bottom-up' plan of what the impact of Brexit could be (this sounds like a good thing to me) - and its plan to cope with the 'worst case' (I'd like to know just how many "worst case scenarios" = "Brexit is off!").

"Although necessary, this falls considerably short of having a 'government plan for Brexit' because it has no prioritisation and no link to the overall negotiation strategy." (5 months left, and no outline plan.....even fot the Brexit Talks, not to mention the bigger task of world-wide talks about new trade deals etc)

The document also says big businesses could soon "point a gun at the government's head" to secure what they need to maintain jobs and investment. (I thought Brexit was going to mean lots of new opportunities, why would big business be concerned ?)

Meanwhile, shadow chancellor John McDonnell is saying that the government's shambolic approach to Brexit is failing to equip the UK economy for leaving the EU.

He is also suggesting the chancellor is isolated from cabinet colleagues and too weak to make Brexit a success.

Sounds like my "sleepwalk" is morphing into a "nightmare"

Of course they don't recognise the memo... to have written such a memo would have taken more foresight and self examination than they are capable of...

(This post is, at least partly, intended as a joke)

Eloise posted:

Of course they don't recognise the memo... to have written such a memo would have taken more foresight and self examination than they are capable of...

(This post is, at least partly, intended as a joke)

..........many a true word...........

The memo apparently came from Deloitte.  That means either (or possibly both) of two things to me.  One, that there is some kind of profit motive behind the memo or the leak.  This would cast doubt on how trustworthy it is, and wouldn't be all that surprising.  Two, that the real movers and shakers have a much more realistic picture of what's going on than the public are being fed (Deloitte is a serious entity).  No idea which is true, but I suspect that at least one is.

Anyway, my reason for posting was to mention that there was a very interesting programme on Radio 4 last night about Brexit-type stuff.  The journalist made the distressingly original move of actually going round various people in Europe and asking them what they thought.  The overwhelming answer seemed to be that, once the initial shock had settled down a bit, Europeans are totally implacable that the '4 freedoms' are beyond negotiation.  The UK politicians, who clearly consider themselves Exceedingly Important People (initials capitalised for cynical emphasis), are simply flogging a dead horse.  The Europeans aren't particularly interested in being vengeful, there's just no way, at all, ever, that they're going to agree to e.g. free trade without free movement.  And lest people suspect that a David Davies-style bluster along the lines of 'it'll cost them money otherwise, so they'll give in' crop up, such thoughts were made to look rather like misguided Tory solipsism by the comment in the programme that sanctions against Putin cost money, but they weren't negotiable either.

Make of it what you will, I just thought it worth mentioning in case anyone wanted to check it out for a different perspective than the (IMO) rather internally obsessed accounts we customarily hear in the UK.

Analysis: Brexit, What Europe Wants (link).

I don't know what HMG has in mind with regard to negotiations with the EU.

FWIW, from personal experience they are definitely considering a number of options which range from a "Soft Brexit" to a "Hard Brexit" across a wide range of subjects. So the 500 or so issues mentioned in the report seems realistic. It also seems realistic to presume there is a wide spread of opinion across the Conservative Party as to what our aims should be with regard to leaving the EU. I've no doubt these will range from No Trade Agreement+No Immigration --> Full Trade Agreement+Free Movement, and all stations in between. How widespread within the Conservative Party this discussion is, is unclear, but I rather suspect it is quite limited.

Personally, I guess that Junckers would be happy to accept either of these extremes, but not much in between, and I do wonder how carefully HMG is sounding out the rest of the Union. I think there is far too much short-sighted, unrealistic, optimism.

Brexit touches pretty much everything that government does e.g. economic policy, social policy, welfare policy, employment policy, H&S safety, industrial policy, environmental policy, security policy, tax policy, immigration policy and so on.  It also impacts huge areas of the private sector of course. Pulling together a sufficiently detailed impact analysis to understand this is essential to avoid unforeseen and unwelcome effects of Brexit. That impact analysis then needs to be used to identify options for every dossier with the pros and cons of each appraised to determine the desired optimal negotiating outcome together with tolerable fall-back positions and 'red-lines' where HMG will not concede , all of which of course needs to be agreed across all the affected government departments.  This is a monumental task which will necessarily take a huge number of people and a long time (not IMV a few months) to construct, evaluate and stress-test. And it won't just be sufficient to simply throw people at it , e.g. by buying in many consultants, there will be a need for deep expertise in each area, and that expertise has probably not been twiddling their thumbs waiting for Brexit to come along to give them something useful to do: that expertise will already be busy doing necessary day-to-day government work. So I'm not at all surprised at the suggestions of the absence of  a detailed plan and a shortfall in the resources needed to construct it.

Oh, and even if by some miracle all this work was on track to be ready for deployment in negotiations from 31st March, consider the position in the rest of the EU.  Every one of the 27 other member states will need to work out what it wants and doesn't want from Brexit and to be ready to pool that position with all the other remaining member states. The EU commission will then try to navigate a path to a single negotiating position with which the rest of the EC can sit down with the UK negotiating team. My guess is that there will be wide differences between the remaining member states which will need reconciling.  Not a simple or quick process.  

This is going to be a long and very hard road.  

 I think May is doing a great job.

 She’s given the task of planning Brexit to the three most incompetent Brexiteers in the Tory party. Next March when she says, “well boys, what’s the plan”, they’ll shrug their shoulders and say “there isn’t one”.

 They’ll then be forced to concede there isn’t actually a feasible way of leaving the EU.

 She’ll then declare the result of the referendum won’t be overturned, but held in abeyance.

£369m allocated to the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.

Well, that's the first week's post-Brexit saving on our membership fee accounted for. What next ?

Perhaps this Brexit idea isn't so bad after all ??

errrr ! what do you mean, the NHS is having to pay more for drugs and equipment ? Tosh ! I say, Tosh !

Don Atkinson posted:

errrr ! what do you mean, the NHS is having to pay more for drugs and equipment ? Tosh ! I say, Tosh !

Are you suggesting they would get a better deal from Toshiba?

Don Atkinson posted:

£369m allocated to the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.

Well, that's the first week's post-Brexit saving on our membership fee accounted for. What next ?

Perhaps this Brexit idea isn't so bad after all ??

errrr ! what do you mean, the NHS is having to pay more for drugs and equipment ? Tosh ! I say, Tosh !

The BBC report that the refurbishment is over ten years, Don.  The sums will be very, very tiny in proportion to HMG's annual expenditure. 

MDS posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

£369m allocated to the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.

Well, that's the first week's post-Brexit saving on our membership fee accounted for. What next ?

Perhaps this Brexit idea isn't so bad after all ??

errrr ! what do you mean, the NHS is having to pay more for drugs and equipment ? Tosh ! I say, Tosh !

The BBC report that the refurbishment is over ten years, Don.  The sums will be very, very tiny in proportion to HMG's annual expenditure. 

Hi Mike,

Yes, 10 years. And long overdue. Will be money well spent in my view. And as you say, it is virtually insignificant and the benefits will out-strip the cost several times over.

Others will argue that the money could be better spent elsewhere. There will always be other priorities and that is where we normally expect HMG and the Civil Service (together with their expert advisors) to apply their talents - sorting out priorities and doing what's right for the Nation, taking account of minority interests along the way.

As I say, in this case, IMHO they got it right. (and I know it wasn't at the expense of our membership of the EU, it was in addition to that expense, which IMHO was also money well spent).

Apologies for the element of sarcasm in the initial post.

Now the renovations to Palace of Westminster... total folly (IMO). Renovations to an antiquated not fit for purpose building which will leave it still not fit for purpose after £4billion costs!

Eloise posted:

Now the renovations to Palace of Westminster... total folly (IMO). Renovations to an antiquated not fit for purpose building which will leave it still not fit for purpose after £4billion costs!

Some people are telling me that space in a suitable office in Brussels could become available in a couple of years time, with space in a "branch office" nearby in Strasburg.............

OTOH, it's possible the current tenant has a 99 year rental commitment  on the serviced office space at £349m pw and naively thinks it can withdraw from the agreement without penalty..........

The other £1m pw is a voluntary contribution to assist development in Eastern Europe and to provide Train Fares to those wishing to visit the UK.........

...........or so I have been mis-led to believe.

I posted this in the HiFi Forum regarding Naim's January price increase.

I wasn't sure whether to post in the Padded Cell under "Brain Teasers" or "Sleepwalking"

"Sleepwalking" won............

We might not be “sleepwalking” out of the EU, but for sure we have no idea where Brexit will lead us.

The press delighted in painting a picture of the UK as “The Odd-One-Out” in the EU. Always moaning or whinging, wanting things to suit US, groaning at the Rules & Regulations etc etc etc………..

In the aviation world, the UK has been a leading player in the development of a European-wide set of rules and regulation. And has managed to steer those rules in a reasonably sensible direction despite a 10 year long battle with the original chairman of EASA who eventually was sacked for persisting with his “One-rule-fits-all” policy of “standardisation”. He insisted on the same rules for a recreational pilot in his 2-seat Cessna 152 as BA and Lufthansa with their 400-seat B747’s or Airbus 380’s. His equivalent set of rules for road-users would have had cyclists and car drivers (think winky on his bike and TonyM in his Lotus) have to pass HGV/PSV medicals and driving tests before being allowed on the roads on their bike or car maintained to HGV/PSV standards. In other words, the UK persisted and brought a high degree of common sense to bear.

So it came as no surprise to me last week when a new proposal was published, to learn that the UK had been one of the 4 drafting countries. The proposal concerned the introduction of a new (*) grade of Licence (actually a Rating) to permit suitably trained pilots to fly in poor weather conditions and cloud such that they have to relay entirely on the aircraft instruments to keep the plane straight and level, and the use of radio aids or GPS to navigate. (*) New in the sense that it provides an alternate (part-time) training route to existing (full-time) training arrangements.

What really surprised me though, was the national distribution of respondents to the  questionnaire that formed part of the drafting process. It was widely distributed across the EU and well publicised. More than half the respondents were from the UK !

• UK.....................54%
• Germany..........12%
• Sweden...............6%
• ……
• France.................1%

Even Norway and Switzerland managed a better response rate than France and they aren't in the EU !

Who says the UK wasn’t a committed, sensible, rationalizing force within the EU. I am sure such sensible involvement wasn’t restricted to the aviation industry.

Do we really want to walk away, leaving all this sort of good work behind us, throwing other parts of the EU to the mercy of stupid and pathetic bureaucrats like Junkers. Or are we just being selfish ?

A good example, Don. While the media and some politicians like to portray the UK as reluctant participants in the EU, the reality is that, behind the scenes, the UK has been a hugely active and constructive participant for decades. That is both from government and business.  Many, many ideas have benefited hugely from the UK's input and, though not fashionable to say so publicly, other member states have considerable respect for the UK's contribution.  That is one of the reasons why so many in the administrations of other member states are so sad to see us leave.

Mike

What role will the Foreign Secretary play in our Brexit negotiations ?

.............Turn the Sleepwalk into a nightmare..................

You might agree with his comments regarding Saudi, and you might agree with his views regarding the EU, Germany (cars), and Italy (Proseco), but IMHO many of his expressed opinions are un-diplomatic. And diplomacy is going to be in high demand come April.

I find it curious that on a regular basis Boris says things which No10 then distances itself from, implying that he is expressing only personal views.  He is UK's Foreign Secretary for goodness sake! If what he says isn't the UK's foreign policy what on earth is the point of having him in this role? The UK must fast becoming something of a laughing stock among the international diplomatic community.  

It looks as if he is still going to Saudi this weekend. I doubt if he could really do much more to upset relations.

However, If his diplomacy doesn't improve, I presume the PM will find him some side-line role during Brexit.

Don Atkinson posted:

What role will the Foreign Secretary play in our Brexit negotiations ?

.............Turn the Sleepwalk into a nightmare..................

You might agree with his comments regarding Saudi, and you might agree with his views regarding the EU, Germany (cars), and Italy (Proseco), but IMHO many of his expressed opinions are un-diplomatic. And diplomacy is going to be in high demand come April.

I am not sure diplomacy will get the UK the best Brexit deal, hard ball will be required. Either way Boris isn't the man for the job.

The UK could use a Trump or two, look where pussyfooting around Brussels got Cameron.

SamS posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

What role will the Foreign Secretary play in our Brexit negotiations ?

.............Turn the Sleepwalk into a nightmare..................

You might agree with his comments regarding Saudi, and you might agree with his views regarding the EU, Germany (cars), and Italy (Proseco), but IMHO many of his expressed opinions are un-diplomatic. And diplomacy is going to be in high demand come April.

I am not sure diplomacy will get the UK the best Brexit deal, hard ball will be required. Either way Boris isn't the man for the job.

The UK could use a Trump or two, look where pussyfooting around Brussels got Cameron.

You mean we could use a fully blown egomaniac who is a pathological liar and misogynist as our representative in the BREXIT negotiations?

Count me out!

Even Boris, awful though he may be, is not in Trump's league in these respects.  

Adam Meredith posted:

SamS posted:

The UK could use a Trump or two, look where pussyfooting around Brussels got Cameron.

Well, blow me down, are things really that abysmal?

Also -

it's quite difficult to go all-out "hardball" when all the "balls" are in the other court.

You could always "Twitter" that it's "unfair" and then threaten to place a 35% tax on balls that are hit back to you.