fatslob-:O said:
NightlyPoe said:
That's simply incorrect. The backstop doesn't come into effect until 2021 at the earliest in the case of future negotiations faltering. Strip it out of May's deal and nothing changes in the immediate future while the two sides continue negotiating the broader agreement during the transition period.
There's no "automatic" hard border. Neither side even wants a hard border. And all Britain is asking for is an expiration date on the backstop so they won't be permanently entangled. In the end, that's a bare minimum for a country to demand in any negotiations. It's basic sovereignty.
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Gotta realize when striking a withdrawal agreement with the EU it needs unanimous approval among the other 27 members and specifically, Ireland will veto anything else other than a backstop or a customs union ...
Leo Varadkar's party, Fine Gael are not interested in losing the next election by risking to ruin the Good Friday Agreement. The Taoiseach is also not keen on putting a border between Ireland and the EU either. The EU does not like the idea of seeing contraband reach their single market through a potential backdoor in Ireland where goods can be smuggled from the Irish border ...
The backstop is an absolute necessity according to both Ireland and the EU if their not willing to accept borders between each other or the smuggling of illegal goods. The UK lowering their trade barriers relative to the EU will threaten local businesses in the mainland ... (it's the ugly truth that the EU needs more protectionism otherwise it'd get massively undercut by competitors like China or the US)
If the UK is not interested in the proposed relationship or a closer relationship then the only solution is to no deal ... (I think the UK should take this path and takes advantage of it to the maximum degree as much as possible)
The UK needs a revamp in some industries to make it more productive. They should accept chlorinated chicken, hormone treated beef, and GM foods in agriculture to get more food. The UK could also do without GDPR since it practically makes deep learning illegal and Europe's currently best start up tech hub culture is located in London which could play nicely to their advantage. Instead of focusing so much on financial services they should invest a lot on machine learning so that they can take full advantage of automation in a digital economy and the EU will never be able to take complete advantage of automation since it has far reaching restrictions on how data is handled ...
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The UK lowering their trade barriers would:
a) kill the UK economy (that's the ugly truth; it would just be cheaper to import everything that produce anything in the UK anymore) and millions of jobs that way
b) would need to be instated first, which will take time, time where there at least theoretically would need to be a hard border (I say theoretically since if that would get voted early on after leaving, that would be faster than building up walls)
Lowering the barriers would allow the UK to import tons of goods at no cost for the countries exporting to the UK, but the exports of the UK are still subject to the tariffs of every single country that they want to export to - and by removing the import tariffs, they would also remove any incentive on their side to remove their tariffs. After all, they would already have the best deal then, selling cheap to the UK but buying nothing that they produce themselves, as they are protected by their own tariffs.
@underlined: Certainly so, though in most cases it will be cheaper to just move to another country, especially if, like you said above, UK would ditch their tariffs. Producing cheap elsewhere in a third world country and shipping it to the UK tax-free would be much more advantageous to those companies than stay on the island.
@bolded: If you think so. But I wouldn't buy any of those unless forced upon.
@italic: It doesn't make deep learning at all illegal. What it makes illegal is collecting tons of data without knowledge of the users they collect them from, give them a right to opt out, have their data deleted if they ask to, and see in detail all the data the companies collected of an individual in the EU. It doesn't disallow to collect data at all, it's just that they now must ask first if and what data they are allowed to collect.
The tech hub may be an advantage for the UK. Seriously, I hope it does, as Brexit should not be coming on the back of the common people.
Case in point about your argument you were using in previous posts about the expensive EU food products and that the UK would undercut them: I'm in the Philippines right now. But apart from some sweets, the only UK product I could find was Spam (Filipino seem to love that at least, considering the plethora of variations available). From other EU countries, I found Juices (all cheaper than US variants btw and on par to South African juices), Chocolate butter, Milk, Powdered Milk, tons of sweets (especially chocolates and waffles), Honey, Tomato sauce, Olive oil, even some fruits and vegetables... and in almost all cases, the European products are at least competitive to Chinese, Korean, Australian or American products.
Yes, the CAP was set up to protect European farmers from competition from outside the EU. But Macron already announced last year (or 2017, not entirely sure about the date) that they are willing to kill the CAP. Even just thinking that is a sign that the European farmers don't need the protection anymore, as they are increasingly exporting their goods on the world market, and with success as you can see from the above. And yet, apart from Spam and some sweets, I don't see anything British here. It may be a reason of taste, but I guess it's more because UK products are not as competitively priced as with other European products
