UK receives positive responses from Brussels on leaving plan - Brexit minister

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UK receives positive responses from Brussels on leaving plan - Brexit minister

REUTERS

 

Britain's Secretary of State for Departing the EU David Davis leaves a cabinet meeting in Downing Street, London, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Brexit minister David Davis said the government had received positive responses from Brussels after Prime Minister Theresa May set out her priorities for upcoming negotiations on leaving the European Union.

 

"Some of the other responses we got back from Brussels overnight reflected that, that this was a positive response, something that they were, I think they were hoping for, frankly," Davis told BBC radio on Wednesday.

 

May said in a speech on Tuesday that Britain would seek the greatest possible access to European markets but aim to establish its own free trade deals with countries beyond Europe, and impose limits on immigration from the continent.

 

Asked how things would change for Britons the day after the country left the EU, Davis said he did not expect travel restrictions but customs checks were up for negotiation.

 

"You won't see any difference, let's say, in the right to travel. We have got 35 million people who come here from Europe each year," he said. "We will see (about customs checks). That is one of the things we will have to negotiate."

 

(Reporting by Kate Holton, writing by Sarah Young, editing by David Milliken)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-01-18

[Krataiboy]

A "positive response" from Brussels. Wow! Sounds like a bit of an about-face?

 

Three questions which come immediately to mind:

 

Do these overpaid, underworked EU bureaucrats know something we don't?

 

Or has the penny finally dropped that Brexit means Brexit and Britain can and will become a self-governing nation again?

 

And will the fine words of Remainer-turned-Brexit evangelist "Mother" Teresa actually end up buttering the parsnips?

 

Answers on a saucy seaside postcard, please.

[emilymat]

Now I know UK ministes are living in a world of make-believe.

[dunroaming]

The line from the EU at the moment is that they will try to give the UK a fair deal but it has to be inferior to remaining within the EU.  Just what that means will become clearer in two years time. Until then it is still just hot air from both sides of the channel.

[uptheos]

4 minutes ago, dunroaming said:

The line from the EU at the moment is that they will try to give the UK a fair deal but it has to be inferior to remaining within the EU.  Just what that means will become clearer in two years time. Until then it is still just hot air from both sides of the channel.

 

It might be inferior in their bureaucratic minds.

The EU needs us more than we need them. 

[dunroaming]

1 hour ago, uptheos said:

 

It might be inferior in their bureaucratic minds.

The EU needs us more than we need them. 

 

The EU needs us inside not outside.  It is true that we import far more from Europe than we export to them which is why a single market is so important to us.  I know you feel that the EU needs us more than we need them but they have a different view and they are the ones who will set the agenda.   May has set out her wish list but that is all.

[optad]

wait

[dunroaming]

12 minutes ago, optad said:

wait

 

True and it will be some time before anything is clear.  In the meantime HSBC and UBS are moving 1,000 employees each to Paris (source Reuters) from London.

[optad]

^ the rest are going to Berlin.

[Krataiboy]

15 hours ago, dunroaming said:

 

True and it will be some time before anything is clear.  In the meantime HSBC and UBS are moving 1,000 employees each to Paris (source Reuters) from London.

 

What a tragedy it would be to lose a bank with such impeccable credentials for lifetime membership of the international financial brothel known as the City of London.  

 

Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel and Colombia’s Norte del Valle cartel laundered $881m through HSBC and a Mexican unit. In some cases, Mexican branches had widened tellers’ windows to allow big boxes of cash to be pushed across the counters.

HSBC also violated US sanctions by working with customers in Iran, Libya, Sudan, Burma and Cuba.

- source: Guardian newspaper, 11 July 2016.

 

Good riddance, I say - and to the rest of the bunch of corrupt banks the world is still bailing out.  Now let's start building a post-EU economy based on real products producing real jobs and real profits, not the digitally-produced funny money that is keeping the pin-striped City crooks in business and saddling our future generations with debt they can never pay off.

[Laughing Gravy]

I have no respect for the banks as they are fat cats self serving. The gravy train is stopping for them. I would be interested to see the reason for the number leaving. are they closing completely down and moving the complete operation, or are they streamlining. There is a huge difference. I won't miss them.

[Baerboxer]

21 hours ago, optad said:

^ the rest are going to Berlin.

 

Hope so - Germany's financial center is in Frankfurt am Main.

[dunroaming]

6 hours ago, Laughing Gravy said:

I have no respect for the banks as they are fat cats self serving. The gravy train is stopping for them. I would be interested to see the reason for the number leaving. are they closing completely down and moving the complete operation, or are they streamlining. There is a huge difference. I won't miss them.

 

You miss the point.  London is the financial powerhouse for Europe, brings in billions of pounds and are an integral part of the British economy.  The fact that major banks are looking at re-locating out of the UK is worrying at the very least.  Whether you or anyone else "likes" the banks is totally irrelevant.