Assuming EU will not budge, Britain ramps up preparations for no-deal Brexit

[webfact]

Assuming EU will not budge, Britain ramps up preparations for no-deal Brexit

By Kylie MacLellan

 

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures during a speech on domestic priorities at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, Britain July 27, 2019. Lorne Campbell/Pool via REUTERS

 

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government is working on the assumption that the European Union will not renegotiate its Brexit deal and is ramping up preparations to leave the bloc on Oct. 31 without an agreement, senior ministers said on Sunday.

 

Boris Johnson, who took over as British prime minister on Wednesday with a promise to deliver Brexit by the end of October "no ifs or buts", plans to seek a new exit deal with the EU. The EU has said repeatedly that the deal cannot be reopened.

 

Leading Brexit supporter Michael Gove, who Johnson has put in charge of 'no deal' preparations, wrote in the Sunday Times newspaper that the government would undertake "intensive efforts" to secure a better deal from the EU.

 

"We still hope they will change their minds, but we must operate on the assumption that they will not ... No deal is now a very real prospect and we must make sure that we are ready," Gove wrote.

 

"Planning for no deal is now this government's no. 1 priority," he said, adding "every penny needed" for no deal preparations would be made available.

 

Gove said the government would be launching "one of the biggest peacetime public information campaigns this country has seen" to get people and businesses ready for a 'no deal' exit.

 

The Sunday Times reported that Dominic Cummings, the mastermind behind the 2016 referendum campaign to leave the EU and now a senior aide to Johnson, told a meeting of the prime minister's advisers that he had been tasked with delivering Brexit "by any means necessary".

 

Johnson has set up a "war cabinet" of six senior ministers to make decisions on Brexit and is preparing for a no-deal emergency budget in the week of Oct. 7, the newspaper added.

 

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, new finance minister Sajid Javid said: "In my first day in office ... I tasked officials to urgently identify where more money needs to be invested to get Britain fully ready to leave on October 31 – deal or no deal. And next week I will be announcing significant extra funding to do just that."

 

Javid, a former interior minister, said this would include funding for 500 new Border Force officers.

 

Asked by Sky News where the money would be coming from, junior Treasury minister Rishi Sunak said it was "not a blank cheque" for spending but that Britain could afford to borrow more.

 

REHEAT THE DISH

Johnson has said the Irish backstop, an insurance policy designed to prevent the return of a hard border between EU-member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland by provisionally keeping Britain in a customs union with the EU, must be removed from any Brexit deal.

 

It was one of the most hotly contested elements of the divorce agreement his predecessor Theresa May reached with the EU, and opposition to it was a key driver behind the deal being rejected three times by parliament.

 

"You can't just reheat the dish that's been sent back and expect that will make it more palatable," Gove wrote. "We need a new approach and a different relationship. Critically, we need to abolish the backstop."

 

Lawmakers from opposition parties and the governing Conservative Party have threatened to try and block Johnson taking Britain out of the EU without a divorce deal.

 

The Observer newspaper reported that former finance minister Philip Hammond, who quit last week before Johnson took office, held talks with the opposition Labour Party about how to stop a no-deal Brexit.

 

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Sunday his party would do everything it could to prevent the country leaving the EU without a deal.

 

Although Johnson has been adamant he will not hold an election before Brexit, his Conservative Party does not have a majority in parliament, is divided over Brexit and under threat of a no-confidence vote when parliament returns in September.

 

Speculation of an early election to break the deadlock is likely to be fuelled by a YouGov opinion poll in the Sunday Times, which showed the Conservatives had opened up a 10-point lead over Labour since Johnson took over.

 

"That is not what we want, that is not what the prime minister wants," Sunak said when asked about the possibility of an election.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-07-29

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[OneMoreFarang]

For an outsider (I am EU citizen living in Thailand) it's amazing how much support hard Brexit has. 

I understand that lots of people voted for the idea of being independent from the EU 3 years ago. But what was called Brexit at that time has, as far as I see, little resemblance with what it is now.

It seems 3 years ago many UK citizens thought it will give more control to their own government. And they thought they will soon make some trading agreements with the EU and not much will change. Politicians and aligned newspapers told them everything will be fine and easy. Yes, I understand why people voted for that idea.

But now? Everybody had 3 years to learn about lots of details. And everybody should have learned that most of what the politicians promised is impossible. Cake and eating it with lots of cherries while the unicorns run around in the garden is just not possible. It's not that the EU holds those unicorns back, they just don't exist and nobody will make them appear.

But looking and Boris and his supporters now they still behave like all would be fine if the EU would just release those unicorns.

Why it not obvious for everybody that No Deal makes no sense at all? Because if the UK leaves in October with no deal what will happen in November? People will frantically try to make deals - but now under more difficult conditions.

 

I know we are all stubborn from time to time and realizing that our decision was not perfect and changing it is sometimes difficult. But it's amazing how far that goes in the UK. Follow me over the cliff and somehow there is a bright future after that... ?

[keith101]

I believe that 3 years ago the vote was racially motivated because of all the black and Muslim immigrants moving to the UK for a better life .

[vogie]

7 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

For an outsider (I am EU citizen living in Thailand) it's amazing how much support hard Brexit has. 

I understand that lots of people voted for the idea of being independent from the EU 3 years ago. But what was called Brexit at that time has, as far as I see, little resemblance with what it is now.

It seems 3 years ago many UK citizens thought it will give more control to their own government. And they thought they will soon make some trading agreements with the EU and not much will change. Politicians and aligned newspapers told them everything will be fine and easy. Yes, I understand why people voted for that idea.

But now? Everybody had 3 years to learn about lots of details. And everybody should have learned that most of what the politicians promised is impossible. Cake and eating it with lots of cherries while the unicorns run around in the garden is just not possible. It's not that the EU holds those unicorns back, they just don't exist and nobody will make them appear.

But looking and Boris and his supporters now they still behave like all would be fine if the EU would just release those unicorns.

Why it not obvious for everybody that No Deal makes no sense at all? Because if the UK leaves in October with no deal what will happen in November? People will frantically try to make deals - but now under more difficult conditions.

 

I know we are all stubborn from time to time and realizing that our decision was not perfect and changing it is sometimes difficult. But it's amazing how far that goes in the UK. Follow me over the cliff and somehow there is a bright future after that... ?

You have made some good points but the remainers have tried to thwart any kind of a Brexit, they could have voted for Mrs Mays deal which was Brexit in name only and wasn't really leaving the EU in its true sense. Infact they wanted to ignore the decision what our country voted for, they wanted it their way or no way, now it might come back to haunt them if we crash out without a deal.

[ballpoint]

35 minutes ago, webfact said:

"You can't just reheat the dish that's been sent back and expect that will make it more palatable," Gove wrote.

Seems to be working for Boris and his cabinet.  So far...

[OneMoreFarang]

11 minutes ago, vogie said:

You have made some good points but the remainers have tried to thwart any kind of a Brexit, they could have voted for Mrs Mays deal which was Brexit in name only and wasn't really leaving the EU in its true sense. Infact they wanted to ignore the decision what our country voted for, they wanted it their way or no way, now it might come back to haunt them if we crash out without a deal.

I don't think it was Brexit in name only but I understand your point in principle.

But is this a reason to go to extremes now? No Deal is a catastrophe - especially for the UK. Is it worth going for No Deal just to show the Remoaners that they lost and you won? The UK will (at some point) pay the money to the EU and they will have some trade deal now or in the future. But holding the money back and doing that deal later will make the situation for the UK a lot worse before it possibly can get better. Why do you do this to yourself?

The EU can live without the UK and not much will change. For the UK that is very different. The cliff is waiting. Let's run for it. Amazing!

[OneMoreFarang]

24 minutes ago, keith101 said:

I believe that 3 years ago the vote was racially motivated because of all the black and Muslim immigrants moving to the UK for a better life .

And most of them were not EU citizens so the EU had little to do with this situation.

[vogie]

2 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I don't think it was Brexit in name only but I understand your point in principle.

But is this a reason to go to extremes now? No Deal is a catastrophe - especially for the UK. Is it worth going for No Deal just to show the Remoaners that they lost and you won? The UK will (at some point) pay the money to the EU and they will have some trade deal now or in the future. But holding the money back and doing that deal later will make the situation for the UK a lot worse before it possibly can get better. Why do you do this to yourself?

The EU can live without the UK and not much will change. For the UK that is very different. The cliff is waiting. Let's run for it. Amazing!

Many people would argue that honouring what the country voted for is not extreme, I'm sure Boris would love to leave with a deal that is suitable to everyone, but the EU keeps on insisting that the only deal available is Mrs Mays deal and that deal was a dead duck then and now is still a dead duck.

A 'No Deal' has been forced on the UK by remainers who don't believe in democracy and the EU who are totally instransigent to the delemma, I wonder how many Labour MPs and some Tory MPs had wished they had voted for Mays deal now, well it looks like that ship has sailed. You make your bed you lie in it.

 

[Laughing Gravy]

51 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

The EU can live without the UK and not much will change. For the UK that is very different. The cliff is waiting. Let's run for it. Amazing!

So we keep hearing but they won't let us go. Hence the use of the Irish backstop. We still keep hearing that we can revoke article 50. They do not want us to leave. They are incapable of reforming as we have found out so, the majority voted to leave.

 

52 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

No Deal is a catastrophe - especially for the UK. Is it worth going for No Deal just to show the Remoaners that they lost and you won?

Again we keep hearing it will be catastrophic for the UK. From the same people who wants us to stay. a no deal has nothing to do with remoaners. It has to do with a democratic vote that must be respected or democracy has failed. it is about saying if we can't come to an amicable agreement then we will leave with a no deal. It really quire simple.

The UK will prosper outside of the EU. As much as the EU want to punish the UK and its well documented, the people of the UK have never really embraced the EU and it never will.

[Laughing Gravy]

1 hour ago, keith101 said:

I believe that 3 years ago the vote was racially motivated because of all the black and Muslim immigrants moving to the UK for a better life .

I disagree totally, as for many many years people have campaigned for a referendum to leave the EU. Immigrants have had has some impact but why do you say black immigrants. Polish, Spanish and other EU people have had an impact on working class communities and jobs and they are not usually black, as you describe. Or are you just playing the race card, to suit your agenda.

[evadgib]

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

And most of them were not EU citizens so the EU had little to do with this situation.

Other than allowing economic migrant queue jumpers to transit right across EUrope in order to reach the land of milk and honey instead of backloading them to whichever 'first safe haven' they had first entered after fleeing their countries of origin.

UK welcomes anyone entering via the proper channels having been properly screened & who behave as guests not gate-crashers.

Edited July 29, 2019 by evadgib

[Chomper Higgot]

8 minutes ago, Laughing Gravy said:

I disagree totally, as for many many years people have campaigned for a referendum to leave the EU. Immigrants have had has some impact but why do you say black immigrants. Polish, Spanish and other EU people have had an impact on working class communities and jobs and they are not usually black, as you describe. Or are you just playing the race card, to suit your agenda.

To deny that immigration was not a significant issue is to ignore the clear evidence repeatedly presented in Brexiteer posts here on TVF. 

 

I note you dodge the 'Muslim' immigrants in your denial.

[Moonlover]

1 hour ago, keith101 said:

I believe that 3 years ago the vote was racially motivated because of all the black and Muslim immigrants moving to the UK for a better life .

What utter nonsense!

[Roy Baht]

20 GBP to the THB here we come. I guess the next "Brexit" is from Thailand.

[Jip99]

11 minutes ago, Roy Baht said:

20 GBP to the THB here we come. I guess the next "Brexit" is from Thailand.

 

Pointless...

[tomacht8]

junior Treasury minister Rishi Sunak said it was "not a blank cheque" for spending but that Britain could afford to borrow more.

 

The funding runs on additional credit. The household debt will grow fat again. At the same time, no growth impulses are to be expected. Additional price increases are to be expected, additional tax losses due to corporate downsizing, reduction of domestic investment and depreciation of the British pound in relation to foreign trade. Truly no rosy prospects.

[Chomper Higgot]

4 minutes ago, Jip99 said:

 

Pointless...

Only if you believe there is not a Sterling/Baht exchange rate at which expats in Thailand reliant upon income paid in Sterling would no longer be able to afford to live here. 

 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Chomper Higgot

[Jip99]

20 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Only if you believe there is not a Sterling/Baht exchange rate at which expats in Thailand reliant upon income paid in Sterling would no longer be able to afford to live here. 

 

 

Quoting 20 is pointless.......... you can't have a sensible conversation around an exchange rate at that ridiculous level - any more than you could if I said the post-Brexit rate would be 70.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Jip99

[vogie]

1 minute ago, tomacht8 said:

junior Treasury minister Rishi Sunak said it was "not a blank cheque" for spending but that Britain could afford to borrow more.

 

The funding runs on additional credit. The household debt will grow fat again. At the same time, no growth impulses are to be expected. Additional price increases are to be expected, additional tax losses due to corporate downsizing, reduction of domestic investment and depreciation of the British pound in relation to foreign trade. Truly no rosy prospects.

But everything in the EU garden will be fine and dandy? It just mesmerises me why you all the time are so negative to the UK, but always play down the effect it will have on the EU. I can only re-iterate that if the EU won't renegotiate on a deal there is very little Boris or anyone else in the UK can do.

To quote Sir Christopher Meyer former Ambassador to the US "Those that abhor the Johnson administration have only themselves to blame. Boris as the PM is the creation of the obdurate 3 year remainer rear guard action to thwart the referendum result and the EUs insistence - still - on an unratifiable withdrawal agreement."

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, Laughing Gravy said:

So we keep hearing but they won't let us go. Hence the use of the Irish backstop. We still keep hearing that we can revoke article 50. They do not want us to leave. They are incapable of reforming as we have found out so, the majority voted to leave.

Do you remember why the EU and the UK agreed on the backstop?

They want to avoid a border in Ireland.

And why do they want to avoid that border?

Because they want peace and not a repetition of violence.

Do you agree with this?

So what do you suggest to avoid that border and keep the peace?

And just in case you think about technical solutions which don't exist: Please give us a hint what those solutions will be and when they will exist.

And then there is of course the idea that Northern Ireland stays in the EU market and the border is in the sea like it was agreed originally. That makes a lot of sense to me.

[OneMoreFarang]

56 minutes ago, evadgib said:

Other than allowing economic migrant queue jumpers to transit right across EUrope in order to reach the land of milk and honey instead of backloading them to whichever 'first safe haven' they had first entered after fleeing their countries of origin.

UK welcomes anyone entering via the proper channels having been properly screened & who behave as guests not gate-crashers.

I agree the EU should work on that problem - urgently.

But lets assume the UK is out of the EU. Will that problem go away? Will illegal migrants not try to get into the UK anymore?

And would it be easier for the UK to solve that problem as part of the EU or from outside?

[Sticky Wicket]

5 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Do you remember why the EU and the UK agreed on the backstop?

They want to avoid a border in Ireland.

And why do they want to avoid that border?

Because they want peace and not a repetition of violence.

Do you agree with this?

So what do you suggest to avoid that border and keep the peace?

And just in case you think about technical solutions which don't exist: Please give us a hint what those solutions will be and when they will exist.

And then there is of course the idea that Northern Ireland stays in the EU market and the border is in the sea like it was agreed originally. That makes a lot of sense to me.

The GFA agreement has nothing to do with Brexit, it's a red herring .

There will never be a hard border anyway, again a load of BS to push a narrative.

The only place in which it alludes to infrastructure at the border is in the section on security.

During the Troubles there were heavily fortified army barracks, police stations and watchtowers along the border. They were frequently attacked by Republican paramilitaries.

Part of the peace deal involved the UK government agreeing to a process of removing those installations in what became known as "demilitarisation".

The agreement states that "the development of a peaceful environment... can and should mean a normalisation of security arrangements and practices."

The government committed to "as early a return as possible to normal security arrangements in Northern Ireland, consistent with the level of threat".

That included "the removal of security installations". That is as far as the text goes.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Sticky Wicket

[evadgib]

2 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Do you remember why the EU and the UK agreed on the backstop?

They want to avoid a border in Ireland.

And why do they want to avoid that border?

Because they want peace and not a repetition of violence.

Do you agree with this?

So what do you suggest to avoid that border and keep the peace?

And just in case you think about technical solutions which don't exist: Please give us a hint what those solutions will be and when they will exist.

And then there is of course the idea that Northern Ireland stays in the EU market and the border is in the sea like it was agreed originally. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Any return to violence is highly unlikely given the advances in technology and the changes to the RoE since September 2001. Fortunately the key players all know this even if Joe public doesn't.

[Jip99]

3 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I agree the EU should work on that problem - urgently.

But lets assume the UK is out of the EU. Will that problem go away? Will illegal migrants not try to get into the UK anymore?

And would it be easier for the UK to solve that problem as part of the EU or from outside?

 

 

It would be just as easy for a departed UK to work in cooperation with it's European friends to solve the problem.

 

The UK can deal with it's own immigration policy (which it has not performed well on - and I don't mean build a wall) and refugee policy - rather than be driven by Merkel's old vision.

[evadgib]

9 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I agree the EU should work on that problem - urgently.

But lets assume the UK is out of the EU. Will that problem go away? Will illegal migrants not try to get into the UK anymore?

And would it be easier for the UK to solve that problem as part of the EU or from outside?

Probably not, but if they came via say Calais that is where we should drop them as soon as the matter is known.

(Easier said than done but something has to give)

Edited July 29, 2019 by evadgib

[stephenterry]

And so the cost of Brexit goes up and up - and guess who is going to pay for it? It's certainly not the fat cat politicians who have already been offered a higher tax relief by Johnson in his leadership campaign or billionaire tax exiles funding the Tory party, or emerging markets hedge fund chairs, like Mogg.

 

No, it's the man in the street. 

[Chomper Higgot]

46 minutes ago, Jip99 said:

 

Quoting 20 is pointless.......... you can't have a sensible conversation around an exchange rate at that ridiculous level - any more than you could if I said the post-Brexit rate would be 70.

I'm quite certain that had you or I discussed a Bh37.5/£ with the influx of Britons retiring to Thailand when the exchange rate was above Bht70/£, they too would have said something very similar. 

 

I suggest you refresh your memory by revisiting threads here on TVF in which frantic discussions were had on the exchange rate as it dropped below Bht60/£.

 

You can object to Bht20/£ as an unsubstantiated number, but you'll have a harder time objecting to the observation on which way the exchange rate is going and the increasing financial difficulties of expats reliant upon income paid in Sterling. 

 

 

[nauseus]

48 minutes ago, vogie said:

But everything in the EU garden will be fine and dandy? It just mesmerises me why you all the time are so negative to the UK, but always play down the effect it will have on the EU. I can only re-iterate that if the EU won't renegotiate on a deal there is very little Boris or anyone else in the UK can do.

To quote Sir Christopher Meyer former Ambassador to the US "Those that abhor the Johnson administration have only themselves to blame. Boris as the PM is the creation of the obdurate 3 year remainer rear guard action to thwart the referendum result and the EUs insistence - still - on an unratifiable withdrawal agreement."

Good points, plus the EU/Eurozone is already showing signs of returning economic woe anyway. The last thing that the EU need now is a hard Brexit, which they could avoid easily with some goodwill instead of their hard terms.

 

In the Treaty of Lisbon, Article 50 is there as a tool for any member state to use to exit the EU. If you read it, it is simply written and lays out a fairly reasonable route to follow to a sensibly negotiated conclusion. But in reality, the EU fears a successful Brexit, which might encourage other members to follow suit and that overriding fear is the prime reason why a soft Brexit is unlikely to happen. 

[Jip99]

19 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

I'm quite certain that had you or I discussed a Bh37.5/£ with the influx of Britons retiring to Thailand when the exchange rate was above Bht70/£, they too would have said something very similar. 

 

I suggest you refresh your memory by revisiting threads here on TVF in which frantic discussions were had on the exchange rate as it dropped below Bht60/£.

 

You can object to Bht20/£ as an unsubstantiated number, but you'll have a harder time objecting to the observation on which way the exchange rate is going and the increasing financial difficulties of expats reliant upon income paid in Sterling. 

 

 

 

 

The reasons for the movement from 70 to 50 are well know and Thailand has corrected itself from the 1997 crisis.

 

The reasons movement from 50 to 42 are well know as the Brexit factor. 42 to 38 is down to Thai Baht strength as evidenced with falls in the USD, AUD, EUR etc.

 

The fall to 42 was deemed by those well known financial commentators to be due to the uncertainty surrounding a hard Brexit. Therefore, a No Deal Brexit should already be factored.

 

All the above is a load of b0llocks, as we all know that that uncertainty created only gives the platform for speculators to make money out of currency volatility..... they make bugger all in a stable environment.

 

The fact remains that the average GBP/EUR exchange rate over the last 40 years has been 50.17 and there is no economic reason why that rate will not be reached again. For most expats who have been here any length of time a rate of GBP/THB 50 is the benchmark. I have said previously that my initial Thailand budget was based on 65.

 

 

[OneMoreFarang]

45 minutes ago, evadgib said:

53 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I agree the EU should work on that problem - urgently.

But lets assume the UK is out of the EU. Will that problem go away? Will illegal migrants not try to get into the UK anymore?

And would it be easier for the UK to solve that problem as part of the EU or from outside?

Probably not, but if they came via say Calais that is where we should drop them as soon as the matter is known.

(Easier said than done but something has to give)

I think the UK could now within the EU control that point of entry as much as possible against illegal migrants.

It wont be easier for the UK if their are out of the EU.