Tag: Business

Backstop, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brussels, Trade Deals

#Brexit and the Wider World (Part 3 of 3)

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This Blogpost was written on Sunday Sept 22nd, 2019

Liz-Truss-in-Sydney

Simon Nixon, in a recent column in the Times, draws attention to a passage about the European Union in David Cameron’s memoirs. In trying to persuade Boris Johnson to back Remain, the former Prime Minister writes that “Boris had become fixated on whether we could pass legislation that said UK law was ultimately supreme over EU law”.

Cameron sent Sir Oliver Letwin on a “nightmare round of shuttle diplomacy” between Mr Johnson and the government’s lawyers to see if a way could be found to address his concerns by domestic legislation.

“But those lawyers were determined to defend the purity of European law and kept watering down the wording … Our officials were determined to play by the rules.”

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Brexit, Conservative Party, Customs Union, Negotiating, Northern Ireland, Single Market, UK Labour Party

Britain and Europe Plus ça change

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This blogpost was written on July 1, 2019

marr hunt

You know a country is in deep trouble when one of its major political party appears to lose touch with social decency and economic reality. Yesterday, we had Jeremy Hunt telling a Sunday TV show that he would willingly tell people whose companies went bust after a no-deal Brexit that their sacrifice had been necessary, saying:

“At the beginning of October, if there is no prospect of a deal that can get through parliament, then I will leave at the end of October because that is our democratic promise to the British people.”

Asked whether, under such a policy, he would be willing to look owners of family businesses in the eye and say they should be prepared to see their companies go bust to ensure a no-deal Brexit, Hunt said: “I would do so but I’d do it with a heavy heart precisely because of the risks.”

As Nick Cohen, recalled in his Observer column:  “At no time and in no circumstances should a communist place his personal interests first,” said Chairman Mao.” As if anticipating Hunt’s later remarks, Cohen commented: “In the Conservative and Unionist party, as in the Chinese Communist party, personal interests are discarded if they threaten the purity of the Brexit cause.”

Truly, greater love for Brexit hath no politician than this that he would willingly lay down your job for his career (and votes from the 150,000 Tory selectorate who will choose the party’s new leader and potential prime minister).

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Article 50, Brexit, British Government, Referendum, Single Market, Theresa May

Après Honda, Le #Brexit Deluge?

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This blog was written on Feb 19, 2019
nissan_logo_leaflet
A section from a pro-brexit referendum leaflet – it has not aged well…

I suppose that the modern equivalent of the old phrase “O that mine enemy would write a book” would roughly translate as “Just let them go ahead and Tweet that”.

For, despite the “right to be forgotten,” our tweets have a habit of following us around. Even if you delete them, someone, somewhere has them. As Terry Benedict might have said in Ocean’s 11 “On Twitter, someone is always watching”.

Sure enough, Monday last, the day the news broke that Honda intends to shutter its Swindon plant with the loss of 3,500 direct jobs, and thousands of indirect jobs, someone dug up this old, 2015 Tweet from Daniel Hannan, one of the original Brexiteers:

That idea that car manufacturers might disinvest after we leave the EU? It’s a – what’s the word? – oh yes. Lie.

That doesn’t seem to have aged well. Nissan, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) have all announced production switches or cutbacks. Now Honda.

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Article 50, Brexit, British Government, Negotiating, Northern Ireland, Single Market, Theresa May

U.K. Has Deadlocked Itself on #Brexit

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

theresa_campaigning_vi3odk

This blog was written on Sunday Oct 14th, 2018

When we began writing these BEERG Brexit Briefings in June 2017 we continually advised businesses to “hope for the best but prepare for the worst”.

As we head into a crucial Brexit week, with EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Wednesday evening and Thursday with Brexit very much on the agenda, we are dropping the “hope for the best” part and are now advising businesses to “prepare for the worst” because that is where we are heading.

The way we see it, there is no deal that Prime Minister May can negotiate with Brussels that would command a majority in the House of Commons.

As Andrew Rawnsley, one of the most perceptive UK political commentators puts it in the Observer on Sunday:

On the face of it, this makes it very hard to see how Mrs May can strike any agreement with the EU for which there will be parliamentary approval. The opposition has no incentive to help her out of a swamp of the Tory party’s own making. The Democratic Unionists say they will cut off their life-support. The DUP are co-ordinating with the Tory Brextremists. The parliamentary maths is a horror.

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Brexit, Negotiating, Theresa May, UK Labour Party

“Plan for the Worst: Hope for the Best” – the Fading Hope of #Brexit Deal

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

Posted on Friday, Oct 6th 2017:

4221396001_5597581765001_5597568337001-vsThe major party conferences have come and gone and still we are no wiser as to how Brexit is going to unfold. As we noted in last week’s Briefing, the Labour Party’s policy appears to be that they will deliver Brexit, but a Labour Brexit, not a Tory Brexit, whatever that means. Brexit is Brexit and Brexit means being outside the European Union (EU), the single market and the customs union.

However, Labour is in opposition and, so, for the moment what it says is important but nowhere near as important as what the Conservative government says, as it is charged with negotiating the Brexit arrangements with the EU. Whether it can get whatever deal it negotiates, if any, through Parliament, especially the House of Lords, is another matter.

This week’s Conservative Party conference was dominated by three issues:

  1. Brexit;
  2. Who is going to succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader, and when;
  3. and Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

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