The future of the EU and the UK, post-Brexit

Based on his entire life to date, we can bet that what he does next will be intellectually lazy and indicative of an oversimplified binary view of a complex world.

 

People who support our current mistake-in-chief seem to like Boris as well...hmmmm

 

In order for the UK to become the "Singapore" of Europe, it requires some sort of trade relationship that enables it to be one. A country can't be a tax haven if there are trade barriers and tariffs that offset the tax avoidance benefits. Right now, the UK won't be able to sell any services in the EU after Brexit (so companies will be forced to sell tothe EU from another EU country) and will get stuck with WTO tariff rates. You can't create a Singapore situation with a situation like that.

Merkel's comments were a warning to the rest of the EU to ensure that any final trade agreement with the UK does not allow the UK to have sufficient market access to enable to it to serve as a tax haven. The assumption was that the recent FTA deals with Japan and Canada could serve as templates for the UK but realistically the EU will demand far more from the UK in order to protect itself from the Singapore/tax haven scenario.

 

Does international whataboutism make you a globalist?

 

The tax haven status of Singapore is overblown, if tax was your only consideration there are better options for headquartering. The EU-Singapore FTA is in the final stages of being ratified, but the nego process started back in 2009. So a future UK-EU FTA is definitely doable, but it will take time, and it's not clear whether the UK will get better trading terms than it did as an EU member.

 

Fun fact the Supreme Court is less than a decade old. Until 2009 , they hadn't even bothered to formally separate the judiciary from the legislature, the Supreme Justice was still in the papers, in the power of the House of Lords.

But , parliament has NO power to abolish prorogation because the right to prorogue stems from the monarch herself. And because of that, there is very little parliament can do without a coded constitution that has concrete safety valves written down on the abuse of that power.

And it's not right to say that the executive and the legislature are not separate branches in the UK. They aren't "officially" but the supreme court itself has already ruled that they in essence are and the legislature aka Parliament is sovereign over the executive. In the first Ginna Miller case for example that has already become precedent.

This is the peculiarity of the british system also, they have nothing written down ,and they make stuff as they go along, that's why there is a good chance that this proroguation is found illegal.
While in other countries if it was written down, even if there were dubious incentives, the law wouldn't be able to do nothing about it.

That's why they had been touting their own horn for so many centuries that they have the best political system, they have the flexibillity to change things on the go according to circumstances.

Of course we clearly see the severe downside to that, the extreme vulnerability to abuse the system.
The british system can react to those abuses, but these reactions can be done after the fact, maybe years after, there is no safety to protect preemptively and avoid.

Also Boris Johnson has a looong history of cowardice even before he became PM, as the mayor of London and even before that.
There is zero chance that he will risk his own life and carreer and end up in prison and branded a criminal.

If it was someone else like these "Spartans" of the ERG who are crazy they could do it, but Boris Johnson has only one belief and that is Boris Johnson.

 

Well said.

The European companies are lobbying the EU council and governments not to give the UK a better deal so they can sell BMWs and Proseccos to the Brits but so the Single Market will be protected and the UK companies will not have an unfair advantage by having access while not being bound by the same laws, regulations, tax controls and wage rules as the rest of the single market.
And don't forget we haven't even begun to discuss about services, at this point. May wanted it included in the WTA but the EU threw it out of the window from the beginning, we are only talking about the trade of goods.

It's a complete delusion to believe that a no deal Brexit is a "clean break" and they will be all done with it.
The real talks will begin after Brexit.
It's only a question if Britain will negotiate with the EU, with the temporary safety of a WA, or while the country is burning down and they are desperate.

 

What do you think Singapore operated with when it became what it was? the trade deals came later after they'd already done the work. And there were much tighter capital regulations globally back then too, when there's huge efficiency gaps, you basically have to sanction them to stop it as freeing them from the EU regulatory framework. The thing with services though, is they can be sold in Europe but managed out of London, which is what the banks are going to do. London is the financial hq for reasons that go beyond the EU.

Oh i know, it was a product of that 2006 act, one of Tony Blair's many ways to screw the country, and it should never have been created, it wasn't always under parliament, it became that because the monarch was using the courts to limit parliament, and the establishment of the supreme court was just a new way to put it under the boot heel of a different master. Parliament has always had a way to deal with an executive, they can sack it through a vote of no confidence by a simple majority and appoint a new executive in its place (again something that wouldn't occur in the US, since impeachment isn't for that, is prohibitively more difficult because of that, and would just put the VP in power).

He loses the election if they're still in the EU after oct 31, he wins if they leave on the 31st, he wins in a landslide if they try arresting him (have you not figured out he's fashioning himself into Boris v the establishment?). Maybe the UK needs a new Lord Protector?
.

 

Singapore got its "tax haven" status because of two things. It has relatively low corporate tax rates and a large series of tax and financial incentives designed to attract foreign companies to operate from Singapore.

In order to attract companies to a country, those companies have to be able to actually operate from that country. With a no deal Brexit, services companies literally can't sell to the EU and goods will be sold at obscene tariff rates. Companies won't flock to the UK in this environment which is my point. The UK can offer zero rated tax and European services still won't move there because they can't sell from there.

A British bank being forced to sell services from an EU subsidiary defeats the purpose of the tax haven. At that point the subsidiary is now subject to the regulations and taxation of the country it is based in. In order to be a tax haven, British companies must be able to sell goods and services to the European Union FROM the UK. If you're stuck deploying subsidiaries in EU countries to sell in the EU, then you aren't an EU Tax haven anymore.

This is the whole point of the single market and that's why Merkel was warning against giving the British a favorable deal that enables their operating as a tax haven. The US has the same problem. The US could operate as a tax haven relative to the EU if it was granted sufficient market access. TTIP was controversial in parts of Europe for this reason.

I should also add that the US had a little period with dealing with Ireland as a tax haven. Ireland had low tax rates that companies were taking advantage of when merging with Irish companies because they could avoid US tax repatriation requirements. But Irish tax inversions only worked because Ireland was in the European Union and had full single market access and was part of broader EU trade agreements with the rest of the world. Ireland, unlike the UK, had a strong position in terms of trade access and tariffs to enable those tax inversions while the UK will have the worst trade access in the developed world.

 

Nigel needs to get his own life in order before he starts telling a whole nation what they should do.

Between abandoning his children, his failed marriages, mistresses and tax dodging, he has a lot to work on.

 

Johnson will win in a landslide in a no deal Brexit from inside prison??
Remember we are here a nice shadenfreude audience in our safety far away, but these voters will be in there live bearing the consequences.

I don't believe it's humanly possible when there is no medicine, shortages of fresh food and 50 kilometeres lory queues for any country to vote for the leaders who got them there, let alone if said leader is now a criminal.

...
Due to the FTP election system it is extremely rare for a british parliament to be hung, so as to be able to oust the government and resist proroguation abuse.

Furthermore, it is one thing to ask for an MP to vote against his whip in a matter of concsience and another to ask for him to vote to fall his own party from power.

These times right now are the most extreme when you see a whole 21 Tory MPs vote against a 3 line whip but even then most of them will NOT vote in a no confidence. Even Grieves and Letwin the Tory masterminds behind the Parliamentary resistance against no deal Brexit had made it publicly clear that they won't fall the government, and THEY think that no deal is a clear cut financial disaster.

So yes in an imaginary scenario, where the PM and government start wearing say publicly swastikas and saying Heil Hitler in Westminster, the parliament could spontaneously unite against them, resist them and fall them.

The only reason that parliament could force Johnson and the government right now was because for two whole years there were talks accross party lines that prepared the ground, and they had THREE whole months during the summer recess to get their things in order AND the Times leaked two days in advance Johnson plan to prorogue so they weren't caught by surprise.
In normal times, half of Westminster could be empty and a PM could just announce to prorogue out of the blue without any time of preparation, the very next day he goes to see the Queen.

The same way like Gove tried to fall Bercow from Speaker a couple of years ago where most of the MPs had gone home or didn't even bother to show up.

The problem isn't proroguation in itself btw. I believe that most parliaments in the world have to close even though there isn't an old lady in black custome carrying a golden stick walking around.
The problem is that there is no limit and no regulation for how long the government can just shut down parliament.

According to the existing laws, it is very possible for any british PM to just decide to shut it down for a year.

 

What a true statesman Nigel Fraudage is.
Hint: Johnson needs no person’s help in being humiliated. He just needs to appear in public and open his mouth.

 

He got humiliated once again today.

• As the Press Association reports, Johnson was confronted by the angry parent, who claimed there were not enough doctors and nurses. In a conversation lasting around two minutes, the man said the situation was “not acceptable”. Johnson was visiting Whipps Cross University Hospital in north-east London when he was challenged by the parent on a children’s ward. The parent said the situation was “not acceptable” and told the Prime Minister:

"There are not enough people on this ward, there are not enough doctors, there’s not enough nurses, it’s not well organised enough. The NHS has been destroyed ... and now you come here for a press opportunity.”

Johnson said “there’s no press here” but the parent gestured to cameras filming the confrontation, and said: “What do you mean there’s no press here, who are these people?”


I thought that Johnson was a demogogue but he is extremely weak when it comes to confrontation.
Even a C-Rate politician can deal better with such situations.

Come to think about it, even Theresa May was better than that.
At least she wouldn't chicken out from the podium in Luxembourg and she had a vast experience from throwing away defenseless poor people to the curb to be more clinical in front of a parent crying for his child.

 

It's amazing he is the so how person keeping this thread alive.

And I still have no idea why he is so invested.

Do you have money on it Mojo?

 

What do you mean the Singapore of Europe?

 

U Big Mad.