No-deal Brexit is ‘biggest threat in a generation’ to Northern Ireland’s economy, warns Danske Bank boss
A no-deal Brexit poses the “biggest threat in a generation” to the Northern Irish economy, according to the boss of Danske Bank UK. Small businesses are most at risk from a hard Brexit, while consumers will also be affected, said Kevin Kingston, the group’s chief executive. Danske is one of the main banks in Northern Ireland, having taken over Northern Bank in 2004. “A hard Brexit would undoubtedly have an impact on a whole range of sectors and individual businesses right across Northern Ireland,” he told reporters in Belfast. “That converts into lower economic growth and businesses making tough decisions about the number of people they employ and their investment. “That, inevitably, will have an impact on consumers in Northern Ireland and the financial affairs of people on the street.” Mr Kingston said: “What we have seen is that larger businesses have been taking decisions to try to safeguard their operations, but the smaller businesses are far less prepared, making them the most vulnerable.
The most likely outcome for Brexit is now a permanent Customs Union, experts say
A permanent Customs Union is the most likely outcome of the ongoing Brexit negotiations, experts now believe. Theresa May enjoyed a rare victory earlier this week when MPs supported a proposal to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement and replace the Northern Ireland backstop with ‘alternative arrangements’. Following discussions with “all sides”, Mujtaba Rahman of Eurasia Group has put forward a revised basecase which puts a deal over a permanent Customs Union way ahead of the alternatives at 55 per cent.
Mr Rahman wrote on Twitter: “For the first time since Brexit, it is possible to see the emergence of the ‘sustainable Commons majority’ that the EU is seeking taking shape over a permanent Customs Union.” Support from Labour MPs would be crucial to this, he said, “to which Jeremy Corbyn would turn a blind eye, allowing him to maintain his ‘constructive ambiguity’ that avoids alienating Leave or Remain voters”. The probability of another referendum now stands at a slim 20 per cent, according to Mr Rahman, though this is more likely than a general election (15 per cent) or no-deal (10 per cent).
Exclusive: leaked emails show officials planning crisis centres to manage halt in waste exports to EU
The UK ships about 3m tonnes of waste a year to the EU, most of it household rubbish. Photograph: Janine Wiedel Photolibrary/Alamy Government officials are preparing to deal with “putrefying stockpiles” of rubbish in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to documents leaked to the Guardian. If the UK leaves the EU without a deal on 29 March, export licences for millions of tonnes of waste will become invalid overnight. Environment Agency (EA) officials said leaking stockpiles could cause pollution. The EA is also concerned that if farmers cannot export beef and lamb, a backlog of livestock on farms could cause liquid manure stores to overflow. A senior MP said the problems could cause a public health and environmental pollution emergency. An EA source said: “It could all get very ugly, very quickly.” The emails leaked to the Guardian were sent to EA staff, asking for 42 volunteers to staff crisis management centres that would deal with incidents. On Tuesday the chief executive of the civil service revealed plans to move up to 5,000 staff into an emergency command and control centre in the event of no deal.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Evangelists for a no-deal Brexit haven’t given up. On the contrary, they have been emboldened by this week's vote in parliament, by polls showing support for a no-deal exit, and by a new plan that they claim will give Britain a quickie divorce from the European Union with none of the pain experts predict. If it all sounds too good to be true, it is. Jacob Rees-Mogg and other Brexiters have flogged the proposal incessantly as the best solution to the current political impasse. The Daily Express has dubbed it a “secret weapon.” It is the key to a newly hatched Plan B, supported by both hardliners like Rees-Mogg and some moderates in Theresa May’s Conservative party. If the prime minister fails to return from her negotiations in Brussels with what Boris Johnson has called a “freedom clause” to get out of the Irish backstop, expect Brexiters to push what they call an Article 24 arrangement. Most of us aren’t well-versed in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the 1948 agreement to reduce trade barriers that is now part of the World Trade Organization. But Article 24 is well-known to experts as the rule that allows groups of countries to discriminate in favor of each other without having to treat all trading partners equally, as the WTO's most-favored nation rules require.
Brexiters argue that the U.K. and the EU can use Article 24 – and especially paragraph five's provision for an “interim” arrangement that can last up to 10 years while a permanent deal is being negotiated – to agree a zero-tariff deal with the EU until a long-term free-trade agreement is developed. Presto: Brexit happens on March 29 with no food and medicine shortages, no Irish backstop, no border controls and no panic. If only. The problem here isn’t in drafting a deal quickly. It can be done over lunch, if you know what you are doing. Lorand Bartels of the University of Cambridge’s law faculty, does – and did, recently devising a full, ready-made Article 24-compliant agreement, which he tweeted. It contains three brief articles as well as an annex and fits neatly onto three-quarters of a page. Brexiters seized on the paper as proof an Article 24 Brexit is possible – but they missed the simple point of Bartels’s exercise. Striking a bare-bones trade agreement isn’t hard; but it would never come close to replicating the frictionless system that allows the crankshaft used in a Mini to cross the Channel three times before the finished car rolls off the assembly line. It wouldn’t cover service industries, which account for 80 percent of the U.K. economy and 45 percent of total U.K. exports. A bare-bones Article 24 deal would say nothing about regulations, standards or access to each other's customs databases.
Nor, crucially, would it remove border friction. Brexiters suggest Article 24 can be used to get rid of the hated backstop that would keep the Irish border open under May’s deal. But Article 24’s reference to measures to “facilitate frontier traffic” in adjacent countries was intended for grazing cattle – provided they return home after crossing the border. It doesn't begin to address the unique circumstances in Northern Ireland. Of course, the U.K. can't sign an Article 24 deal unilaterally; it would require agreement from the EU. And why would the bloc consent to anything that imperils the 39 billion-pound ($51 billion) divorce settlement that the U.K. has already signed up to, or put its cherished Irish backstop in jeopardy? Should Brexiters insist on going the “interim” deal route – perhaps an easier sell politically – it still wouldn’t be a cinch. Such an agreement must include a timetable and a schedule of items that will be covered in the final agreement. Article 24 is vague about how long this has to be, but Peter Ungphakorn, who worked in the WTO secretariat for nearly two decades, reckons it's a lot longer than a page. “It has to say what is being implemented in the interim, and give some indication of what the final deal will cover, and how the talks will get there,” he says
And then other WTO members could demand the interim agreement be changed, especially if they felt their own interests were hurt. They could even object if they think it sets a bad precedent. That could lead to disputes – just as the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism is jammed because the Trump administration has blocked the appointment of new judges for it.
The EU are being very fair, they are also allowing airlines to fly as they are now for 7 months after no deal, before having to comply with any new regulations.
Brexit: EU agrees visa-free travel for UK citizens even after no-deal exit
The EU has agreed to give British citizens visa-free travel to member states, even if there is a no-deal Brexit.
Brexit Britain has forgotten the crucial role the UK played in shaping the Europe of today
Two themes have dominated the debate during the Brexit negotiations: Leavers have repeatedly claimed that Europe “needs us more than we need them”, with feverish anecdotes of Britons buying German cars and French wines; while Remainers have been keen to stress the lopsided nature of the negotiations, suggesting that the 27 EU member states, with a combined economy almost eight times the size of the UK, have significantly more power and sway in the negotiations. Which side of those two conflicting views you take is usually an indication of how you voted in the referendum, but both are masked in opinion, much of which is formed by ideology. Irrespective of which side of the fence you are, what has been forgotten since Britain voted to leave the European Union is that the UK has been vastly important and influential in shaping the direction of European integration, and since the end of the Second World War has helped to mould European geopolitics into what it is today. Without the UK Europe would not be where it is right now – and without a doubt Britain will be missed once we officially leave the bloc on 29 March.
The left case for Brexit was an interesting exercise, a bit like a Marxist review of The Very Hungry Caterpillar or one of those games where you work out whether it would be better to have no arms or no legs
Jeremy Hardy's best jokes: From Brexit to right wing hypocrisy
Perhaps the biggest lesson is that although some of the things the Out campaign were warning about, particularly on sovereignty, have come to pass - and the In campaign will claim Britain's membership has delivered the peace, stability and prosperity their kipper-tied forebears had promised - it is best to take confident predictions about what might happen in the future, from either side, with a large pinch of salt.
The other diners were Boris and Michael Goves wives, Liz Hurley didn't turn up. I expect that if his coin flip had come down in favour of remain, we wouldn't have had to go through all the bs of the last 3 years. No election, no Brexit negotiations. The Tories would still have a majority, and maybe could have dealt with the so called burning injustices.
The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson to Premiere at Park Theatre
The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson, the explosive new Brexit-inspired comedy drama from journalist and playwright Jonathan Maitland (An Audience with Jimmy Savile, Dead Sheep), directed by Lotte Wakeham (in-coming Artistic Director of the Octagon Theatre, Bolton) will have its World Premiere at Park Theatre from 9 May – 8 June 2019. It was the dinner that changed history: the night in February 2016 when Boris Johnson decided to vote ‘leave’. Guests included fellow MP Michael Gove, media mogul Evgeny Lebedev and, for Boris at least, the spirits of Prime Ministers past – Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Tony Blair.
Fast forward to post-Brexit Britain, 2029: a country divided. Boris is back in the political wilderness and has ambitions to make Britain great again, but what are his true intentions? Navigating a career in politics and the media, Boris remains as divisive as ever and in an unexpected turn of events, soon finds himself mired – yet again – in controversy.
Comments
A no-deal Brexit poses the “biggest threat in a generation” to the Northern Irish economy, according to the boss of Danske Bank UK.
Small businesses are most at risk from a hard Brexit, while consumers will also be affected, said Kevin Kingston, the group’s chief executive. Danske is one of the main banks in Northern Ireland, having taken over Northern Bank in 2004.
“A hard Brexit would undoubtedly have an impact on a whole range of sectors and individual businesses right across Northern Ireland,” he told reporters in Belfast.
“That converts into lower economic growth and businesses making tough decisions about the number of people they employ and their investment.
“That, inevitably, will have an impact on consumers in Northern Ireland and the financial affairs of people on the street.”
Mr Kingston said: “What we have seen is that larger businesses have been taking decisions to try to safeguard their operations, but the smaller businesses are far less prepared, making them the most vulnerable.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/no-deal-brexit-biggest-threat-143700736.html
A permanent Customs Union is the most likely outcome of the ongoing Brexit negotiations, experts now believe.
Theresa May enjoyed a rare victory earlier this week when MPs supported a proposal to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement and replace the Northern Ireland backstop with ‘alternative arrangements’.
Following discussions with “all sides”, Mujtaba Rahman of Eurasia Group has put forward a revised basecase which puts a deal over a permanent Customs Union way ahead of the alternatives at 55 per cent.
Mr Rahman wrote on Twitter: “For the first time since Brexit, it is possible to see the emergence of the ‘sustainable Commons majority’ that the EU is seeking taking shape over a permanent Customs Union.”
Support from Labour MPs would be crucial to this, he said, “to which Jeremy Corbyn would turn a blind eye, allowing him to maintain his ‘constructive ambiguity’ that avoids alienating Leave or Remain voters”.
The probability of another referendum now stands at a slim 20 per cent, according to Mr Rahman, though this is more likely than a general election (15 per cent) or no-deal (10 per cent).
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/likely-outcome-brexit-permanent-customs-union-experts-say-133003711.html
Uri Geller will 'use all my telepathic powers' to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming PM
https://www.aol.co.uk/news/2019/02/01/uri-geller-will-use-all-my-telepathic-powers-to-stop-jeremy-co/
Exclusive: leaked emails show officials planning crisis centres to manage halt in waste exports to EU
The UK ships about 3m tonnes of waste a year to the EU, most of it household rubbish. Photograph: Janine Wiedel Photolibrary/Alamy
Government officials are preparing to deal with “putrefying stockpiles” of rubbish in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to documents leaked to the Guardian.
If the UK leaves the EU without a deal on 29 March, export licences for millions of tonnes of waste will become invalid overnight. Environment Agency (EA) officials said leaking stockpiles could cause pollution.
The EA is also concerned that if farmers cannot export beef and lamb, a backlog of livestock on farms could cause liquid manure stores to overflow. A senior MP said the problems could cause a public health and environmental pollution emergency. An EA source said: “It could all get very ugly, very quickly.”
The emails leaked to the Guardian were sent to EA staff, asking for 42 volunteers to staff crisis management centres that would deal with incidents. On Tuesday the chief executive of the civil service revealed plans to move up to 5,000 staff into an emergency command and control centre in the event of no deal.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/01/revealed-plan-to-deal-with-putrefying-stockpiles-of-rubbish-after-no-deal-brexit
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47087439
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Evangelists for a no-deal Brexit haven’t given up. On the contrary, they have been emboldened by this week's vote in parliament, by polls showing support for a no-deal exit, and by a new plan that they claim will give Britain a quickie divorce from the European Union with none of the pain experts predict. If it all sounds too good to be true, it is.
Jacob Rees-Mogg and other Brexiters have flogged the proposal incessantly as the best solution to the current political impasse. The Daily Express has dubbed it a “secret weapon.” It is the key to a newly hatched Plan B, supported by both hardliners like Rees-Mogg and some moderates in Theresa May’s Conservative party. If the prime minister fails to return from her negotiations in Brussels with what Boris Johnson has called a “freedom clause” to get out of the Irish backstop, expect Brexiters to push what they call an Article 24 arrangement.
Most of us aren’t well-versed in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the 1948 agreement to reduce trade barriers that is now part of the World Trade Organization. But Article 24 is well-known to experts as the rule that allows groups of countries to discriminate in favor of each other without having to treat all trading partners equally, as the WTO's most-favored nation rules require.
Brexiters argue that the U.K. and the EU can use Article 24 – and especially paragraph five's provision for an “interim” arrangement that can last up to 10 years while a permanent deal is being negotiated – to agree a zero-tariff deal with the EU until a long-term free-trade agreement is developed. Presto: Brexit happens on March 29 with no food and medicine shortages, no Irish backstop, no border controls and no panic. If only.
The problem here isn’t in drafting a deal quickly. It can be done over lunch, if you know what you are doing. Lorand Bartels of the University of Cambridge’s law faculty, does – and did, recently devising a full, ready-made Article 24-compliant agreement, which he tweeted. It contains three brief articles as well as an annex and fits neatly onto three-quarters of a page.
Brexiters seized on the paper as proof an Article 24 Brexit is possible – but they missed the simple point of Bartels’s exercise. Striking a bare-bones trade agreement isn’t hard; but it would never come close to replicating the frictionless system that allows the crankshaft used in a Mini to cross the Channel three times before the finished car rolls off the assembly line.
It wouldn’t cover service industries, which account for 80 percent of the U.K. economy and 45 percent of total U.K. exports. A bare-bones Article 24 deal would say nothing about regulations, standards or access to each other's customs databases.
Nor, crucially, would it remove border friction. Brexiters suggest Article 24 can be used to get rid of the hated backstop that would keep the Irish border open under May’s deal. But Article 24’s reference to measures to “facilitate frontier traffic” in adjacent countries was intended for grazing cattle – provided they return home after crossing the border. It doesn't begin to address the unique circumstances in Northern Ireland.
Of course, the U.K. can't sign an Article 24 deal unilaterally; it would require agreement from the EU. And why would the bloc consent to anything that imperils the 39 billion-pound ($51 billion) divorce settlement that the U.K. has already signed up to, or put its cherished Irish backstop in jeopardy?
Should Brexiters insist on going the “interim” deal route – perhaps an easier sell politically – it still wouldn’t be a cinch. Such an agreement must include a timetable and a schedule of items that will be covered in the final agreement. Article 24 is vague about how long this has to be, but Peter Ungphakorn, who worked in the WTO secretariat for nearly two decades, reckons it's a lot longer than a page. “It has to say what is being implemented in the interim, and give some indication of what the final deal will cover, and how the talks will get there,” he says
And then other WTO members could demand the interim agreement be changed, especially if they felt their own interests were hurt. They could even object if they think it sets a bad precedent. That could lead to disputes – just as the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism is jammed because the Trump administration has blocked the appointment of new judges for it.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/brexit-trade-myth-needs-busting-070019346.html
Brexit: EU agrees visa-free travel for UK citizens even after no-deal exit
The EU has agreed to give British citizens visa-free travel to member states, even if there is a no-deal Brexit.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/brexit-eu-agrees-visa-free-102300480.html
Two themes have dominated the debate during the Brexit negotiations: Leavers have repeatedly claimed that Europe “needs us more than we need them”, with feverish anecdotes of Britons buying German cars and French wines; while Remainers have been keen to stress the lopsided nature of the negotiations, suggesting that the 27 EU member states, with a combined economy almost eight times the size of the UK, have significantly more power and sway in the negotiations.
Which side of those two conflicting views you take is usually an indication of how you voted in the referendum, but both are masked in opinion, much of which is formed by ideology.
Irrespective of which side of the fence you are, what has been forgotten since Britain voted to leave the European Union is that the UK has been vastly important and influential in shaping the direction of European integration, and since the end of the Second World War has helped to mould European geopolitics into what it is today.
Without the UK Europe would not be where it is right now – and without a doubt Britain will be missed once we officially leave the bloc on 29 March.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/brexit-britain-forgotten-crucial-role-092053152.html
Jeremy Hardy's best jokes: From Brexit to right wing hypocrisy
EU referendum: Did 1975 predictions come true?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36367246
The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson to Premiere at Park Theatre
The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson, the explosive new Brexit-inspired comedy drama from journalist and playwright Jonathan Maitland (An Audience with Jimmy Savile, Dead Sheep), directed by Lotte Wakeham (in-coming Artistic Director of the Octagon Theatre, Bolton) will have its World Premiere at Park Theatre from 9 May – 8 June 2019.
It was the dinner that changed history: the night in February 2016 when Boris Johnson decided to vote ‘leave’. Guests included fellow MP Michael Gove, media mogul Evgeny Lebedev and, for Boris at least, the spirits of Prime Ministers past – Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Tony Blair.
Fast forward to post-Brexit Britain, 2029: a country divided. Boris is back in the political wilderness and has ambitions to make Britain great again, but what are his true intentions? Navigating a career in politics and the media, Boris remains as divisive as ever and in an unexpected turn of events, soon finds himself mired – yet again – in controversy.
https://theatreweekly.com/the-last-temptation-of-boris-johnson-to-premiere-at-park-theatre/