Sunak ‘risks full-scale trade war’ with Brussels by scrapping EU laws

[Thingamabob]

3 hours ago, placeholder said:

An agreement can be amended if both sides agree that it works to their mutual advantage. Let's keep the touchy-feely stuff out of this.

Nothing 'touchy-feely', as you put it, about agreements of all kinds being amended, all over the world.

 

Happens all the time. Been involved in many myself.

 

Statement of fact.

[billd766]

14 hours ago, internationalism said:

would UK-EU trade war strenthen NATO or weaken it?

A good question that there i no real answer to as the two organisations are completely different in their nature. A bit like chalk and cheese.

 

IMO the EU has no real leader since Angela Merkel, but Emmanuel Macron of France is trying unsuccessfully to fill her shoes.

[placeholder]

45 minutes ago, Thingamabob said:

Nothing 'touchy-feely', as you put it, about agreements of all kinds being amended, all over the world.

 

Happens all the time. Been involved in many myself.

 

Statement of fact.

I didn't say making amendments was touchy-feely. It was your stipulation re: goodwill. No amount of goodwill is going to get parties to amend an agreement unless both believe it will be in their respective interests to amend the agreement.

[roquefort]

4 hours ago, placeholder said:

An agreement can be amended if both sides agree that it works to their mutual advantage. Let's keep the touchy-feely stuff out of this.

This is about revenge and punishment from the EU for the UK daring to choose to leave the fold. Even if it means reducing their own trade with the UK. Pour encourager les autres.

[Thingamabob]

28 minutes ago, placeholder said:

I didn't say making amendments was touchy-feely. It was your stipulation re: goodwill. No amount of goodwill is going to get parties to amend an agreement unless both believe it will be in their respective interests to amend the agreement.

Generally speaking I agree. My experience comes mainly from negotiating/ re-negotiating oil and gas production sharing agreements, and oil derivatives trading agreements. Relatively easy with goodwill on all sides, hard-edged if one party is virtually forced to the negotiating table. In the case of the UK and the EU the UK is in a bind due to the appalling ineptitude of it's  negotiators, and successive Tory governments.

[eisfeld]

3 minutes ago, roquefort said:

This is about revenge and punishment from the EU for the UK daring to choose to leave the fold. Even if it means reducing their own trade with the UK. Pour encourager les autres.

It's not revenge but of course the EU doesn't want to encourage other nations to quit their end of the deal while keeping all the benefits.

 

The UK unilaterally is planning to scrap rules and regulations that were agreed upon with the EU to ensure trade as is done currently continues. Now the EU is reacting and says it will then itself have to unilateally adjust their trade with the UK.

 

If the UK doesn't want to play by EU standards then that's their right as an sovereign nation. But they can't expect that all the trade goes on as it did before. The only issue for the UK is that the EU is quite important and trade-wise the UK needs the EU more than the EU needs the UK.

[Chomper Higgot]

17 hours ago, JonnyF said:

It's the EU so they mean more red tape and more trade restricting regulations. It will be against the UK only, they are still sulking about Brexit so like a dumped teenage girl don't expect logic, only spite and emotion. 

 

The EU are led by the Germans so I don't think they would be prepared to take military action and be defeated for a third time. That would be most embarrassing.

Your over exposure to black and white war movies is revealing itself again.

 

 

[Chomper Higgot]

6 hours ago, Purdey said:

A lot of focus on a potential trade war here and little about the effects of lowering women's rights, labor rights and putting the environment in danger. Polluting rivers, punishing unions, lowering food standards. I won't be surprised if pensions to those living overseas are affected ("they're practically foreigners, ain't they?"). 

These aren't the sunlit uplands people were promised..

The EU has the right to tell the British its goods and labor conditions do not meet EU standards and insist low quality foods and goods meet its standards. This will hurt exports. 

Bad for Britain. 

The British could then retaliate against the EU with tariffs and raise food prices in the UK as a result of expensive imports. 

Bad for Britain again.

Shooting itself in the foot has become the national pastime of the UK. Lowering rights and standards doesn't make you free because you can't force the EU to do what the uk wants any more. 

And if it has passed anyone’s notice this Bill to rip up all the EU laws and regulations that were passed by the British Parliament comes from Rees Mogg. 

 

Moreover, it is not simply ripping up laws and regulations, it is removing the sovereign power of Parliament to decide what laws and regulations govern the UK and handing it to the Executive.

 

An open attack on the democratic process and sovereignty of Parliament.

 

Brought to you without an iota of irony, let alone a blush, by BREXIT.

 

You’ll recall that thing about a vote for BREXIT sending a message to ‘the Elite’, well Rees Mogg got the message.

[Chomper Higgot]

6 hours ago, JayClay said:

And this lack of understanding at such an extremely basic level is why there should have never been a referendum.

 

Others have already answered your question so I won't repeat those responses here but this is nothing really to do with Brexit, other than the fact that leaving the UK allows the government to do this unchallenged (or so they thought).

 

This is a desperate power grab by a very small minority of Tory MPs on the far right who know that now is thier last chance in at least a generation to get the deregulated society they've always dreamed of.

 

As Phil Moorhouse once pointed out, even as a desperate last-minute act of despair  it doesn't make sense; why spend your last days in government taking power away from the people simply to give it all to the next (labour) government. The only ones who will benefit out of this are those who will inevitably be shorting the pound if it ever comes close to actually being a reality.

This makes perfect sense to the extremists in the Tory Party if the believe two things:

 

1. They will not win the next election and very likely the election after that.

 

2. The public mood is growing for a return to the EU and a return to the EU will be on the ballot in the next two parliaments.

 

 

It then becomes clear that the extremists on the right of the Tory Party and their extreme rightwing financial backers are running out of time to completely deregulate the UK.

 

Its now or never, the last chance for ‘Singapore on Thames’.

 

[Chomper Higgot]

5 hours ago, MRToMRT said:

But :+) One could say that if the only arrow in your quiver is that you are NOT the Tory party, then it could be worth a go.

That’s not the only arrow in Labour’s quiver.

[internationalism]

2 hours ago, billd766 said:

A good question that there i no real answer to as the two organisations are completely different in their nature. A bit like chalk and cheese.

 

IMO the EU has no real leader since Angela Merkel, but Emmanuel Macron of France is trying unsuccessfully to fill her shoes.

I gave already an answer, which you dismissed. 
those relations within nato will be strained. It would also negatively effect USA-EU relations, as the usa has stronger ties with UK

[placeholder]

1 hour ago, internationalism said:

I gave already an answer, which you dismissed. 
those relations within nato will be strained. It would also negatively effect USA-EU relations, as the usa has stronger ties with UK

Guess what? The Trump administration has been defunct for over 2 years. It's a dubious assertion that the USA now has stronger ties with the UK. Not only was Biden against Brexit, but also very unhappy with what the Brits are attempting to do in relation to Northern Ireland.

[BusyB]

On 2/5/2023 at 11:32 AM, DaLa said:

As the UK is no longer a member of the EU, why should it matter to them what laws are scrapped or indeed implemented in a non member state.

 

I would be interested to know what constitute ‘unilateral rebalancing measures’. Is is like at school where some big mouth tells you, ‘you’ll be sorry’ or is it a bit more serious such as bombing the UK? And are these ‘measures’ going to be applied to all the other countries in the world that don’t adhere to EU regulation.

 

A ‘trade war’, is the warning from ‘senior figures in the EU’. As the meetings were secret didn’t someone remind those ‘senior figures’ not to disclose the ‘measures’.

 

I wait in eager anticipation.

They are the standard measures that are applied to all third party countries (like the UK now is, you are no longer part of the family) whose products do not match EU standards.

 

It's not a punishment, just an inevitable consequence of UK behavior. Your not even exceptional in that regard either.

[Phoenix Rising]

4 hours ago, internationalism said:

I gave already an answer, which you dismissed. 
those relations within nato will be strained. It would also negatively effect USA-EU relations, as the usa has stronger ties with UK

Really??

[placeholder]

5 hours ago, roquefort said:

This is about revenge and punishment from the EU for the UK daring to choose to leave the fold. Even if it means reducing their own trade with the UK. Pour encourager les autres.

The great thing about ascribing motivation to actions is that such allegations can't be proved without a confession. What we do know is that there was an agreement. The UK seems poised to violate that agreement. Violating an agreement has consequences. If you want to turn it into a drama, go right ahead.

[bangon04]

not sure what Sunak is actually "risking"... together with his wife they are multi-millionaires with an option to go and get even richer in corrupt India at any time they feel like it.

[rickudon]

1 hour ago, bangon04 said:

not sure what Sunak is actually "risking"... together with his wife they are multi-millionaires with an option to go and get even richer in corrupt India at any time they feel like it.

Or the USA. Has Rishi still got his green card?

[nglodnig]

Simples - ban exports of Scotch Whisky (UKs' biggest earner) to the EU and they will fall to their knees in submission.

 

NOW - to stop Scotland declaring independence, that would scotch (ha ha) that plan.....