London Banter - Wolmar for MP

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In message , at 10:43:01 on Sat, 12 Nov
2016, tim... remarked:

"Roland Perry" wrote in message news:NZSwU0da$dJYF
...
In message , at 14:19:29 on Fri, 11 Nov
2016, tim... remarked:

And I honestly don't
know
what the calls for a referendum on the result of the negotiations
is trying to achieve. If that referendum votes "no" we'll be
exiting (because that's inevitable) with a blank sheet of paper as
an agreement.

The people asking for it are Remoaners who seem to think that the
alternative option will be "staying in"

If it's as simple as that, they have truly lost the plot.

You're preaching to the converted here, matey

It's Messrs Smith, Benn and Farron you need to be talking to.

I think, perhaps, you have some closer links to them than any of the
rest of us.

Yes, I do, for example on account of this (from Wikipedia):

At the Home Office [Benn] led a task force investigating
internet paedophilia, which subsequently recommended the
introduction of the new offence of 'grooming'. In January 2003,
he had responsibility for introducing the Sexual Offences Bill
in the House of Commons.

I sat on most of the working groups in the Task Force, and chaired one
of them. He's a very approachable and charming chap too.

However, I'm not doing any Brexit work yet.
--
Roland Perry

On Sat, 12 Nov 2016 09:34:40 +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 09:10:00 on
Sat, 12 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

The question was more for yourself, to make you think about the
complexities of the situation. I doubt if the Great Repeal Bill will go
into the level of detail above, for the hundreds of Directives which
will need considering.

Er, no.

Directives are instructions from EU to member states to legislate, so their provisions are already
law.

But rely on ECJ caselaw. Will we airbrush that out on Brexit day, or
will we (can we even) continue to rely upon it?

That depends on the drafting of the legislation.

Regulations are laws brought in directly by EU bypassing national parliaments entirely. It is these
laws which will need to formally brought into UK law before we leave, otherwise laws would disappear
overnight. Afterwards laws can be reviewed in normal way.

Will the Regulations be redrafted in UK-speak (the way transpositions of
Directives are), or what?

I imagine there would be a blanket clause just to state that regulations in force on dd/mm/yyyy are
brought into UK law. But I'm not a lawyer. Check with the Brexit department.

New trade deals are being discussed now.

And the results may be known in ten years time.

Why ten years? Could be ten weeks or ten months.

It takes that long to work out the detail.

No it doesn't, draft agreements with some countries are already taking shape. This can happen quite
quickly, unless you think that negotiators have to travel in person by sailing ship to discuss
terms.

No-one is saying we won't able to trade, but the outcome (if we leave
the single market in any sense) will be tariffs and barriers which will
hurt us more than them.

No, quite the reverse. UK is EU's biggest market.

Are you suggesting some kind of apparatus where the UK's import and
export tariffs are revenue neutral? It's hard to make quotas neutral.

Switzerland has signed up trade deals with far more countries than the EU has, and UK is a bigger
opportunity for business than Switzerland is.

And how long did it take them? Also note that the Swiss GDP is a quarter
of the UK's which makes the stakes lower, and thus easier to negotiate.

They've been doing it for years, about the same time as the EU, but with much greater success.

I do admit that many did vote divorce to become self-governing again.

I am old enough to remember politics before we went into the EC.
Contrary to the alarmist reports
of some, we had human rights, equal pay, maternity pay etc. We had a
health service (the NHS came
into existence when I was a few months old).

Yes, but a great deal of today's consumer/employee protection has been
added on top of that rather low base by the EU.

No-one is saying we get rid of everything the EU introduced - some of
it undoubtedly UK policy. It just means that UK will be responsible in
the future.

It'll be interesting to see how Westminster deals with the workload,
when so much new legislation will have to be fought out locally hand-to-
hand, rather than rubber-stamping something from Brussels.

We managed before 1973.

The world has become far more complicated.

Really? Actually trade barriers are far lower today than fory-odd years ago. Even if we don't get
an FTA with the EU, tariffs under MFN/WTO rules cost us less than the present cost of membership.

our own regional policy (no need for regions to lobby in Brussels
against each other for a small slice of the money we pay into the EU)

It's far easier to get that sort of money from the EU than from
Westminster.

But Westminster will have more money (see above).

But more difficult to extract money from. EU grants are a bit like
applying for a mortgage, you have to present a financial case and tick
all the boxes. The money then arrive relatively painlessly. In
Westminster they'll also be asking you "why exactly do you need four
bedrooms and what's wrong with your current house".

So put pressure on MPs.

They don't make these decisions. Ministers and their unelected civil
servants do.

If they don't deal with it, chuck them out.

How do you do that?

By voting in elections. You go into a booth and put a cross on a piece of paper against the name of
the candidate of your choice.

That's democratic accountability.

The man in the street won't have much visibility of the EU grants issue.

See above.

On Sat, 12 Nov 2016 10:53:30 -0000, "tim..." wrote:

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 09:10:00 on
Sat, 12 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

The question was more for yourself, to make you think about the
complexities of the situation. I doubt if the Great Repeal Bill will go
into the level of detail above, for the hundreds of Directives which
will need considering.

Er, no.

Directives are instructions from EU to member states to legislate, so
their provisions are already
law.

But rely on ECJ caselaw.

There is no such thing

Not in the sense that the result of the case is itself a law.

What a ruling in the ECJ does is require the noncompliance to be amended in
the country's underlying law

once that is done the result of the case is now irrelevant

Will we airbrush that out on Brexit day, or will we (can we even) continue
to rely upon it?

we will be "stuck" with our interpretation the day that we leave.

If someone doesn't like that they will have to ask our courts to adjudicate.
That adjudication might be different from the ECJ's because only the law as
written will be considered, not the original directive's intention.

what's so wrong with that?

Quite right Tim. And ultimately parliament has the power to change the law. That's what the
Referendum was all about.

On Sat, 12 Nov 2016 12:13:45 +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 10:53:30 on Sat, 12 Nov
2016, tim... remarked:

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 09:10:00
on Sat, 12 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

The question was more for yourself, to make you think about the
complexities of the situation. I doubt if the Great Repeal Bill will go
into the level of detail above, for the hundreds of Directives which
will need considering.

Er, no.

Directives are instructions from EU to member states to legislate, so
their provisions are already
law.

But rely on ECJ caselaw.

There is no such thing

Not in the sense that the result of the case is itself a law.

What a ruling in the ECJ does is require the noncompliance to be
amended in the country's underlying law

once that is done the result of the case is now irrelevant

That's all nonsense. Take a recent example (and in workers rights too, a
topic discussed earlier) where the ECJ ruled that if mobile worker
travelled home-client1 - - - clientN-home that the first and last
journeys counted as work. That doesn't change either the rule or the
local transposition, it simply changes the definition of "work".

Will we airbrush that out on Brexit day, or will we (can we even)
continue to rely upon it?

we will be "stuck" with our interpretation the day that we leave.

If someone doesn't like that they will have to ask our courts to
adjudicate. That adjudication might be different from the ECJ's
because only the law as written will be considered, not the original
directive's intention.

what's so wrong with that?

Because when rulings like the above come out, we will get increasingly
out of step with the EU. Which will matter if the law in question about
trade.

So for example, if we automatically adopt the Status Quo of banning the
trade in "abnormally curved" bananas and the expression "abnormally
curved" gets an ECJ ruling changing its interpretation, we could end up
in a very messy situation trying to (re)export green[1] bananas to the
EU.

[1] It only applies to green ones.

All exports have to comply with the standards in the customer's country. For example you wouldn't
be able to sell domestic electrical appliance in the USA which require the UK voltage.

On 12/11/2016 14:20, Optimist wrote:
On Sat, 12 Nov 2016 10:53:30 -0000, "tim..." wrote:

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 09:10:00 on
Sat, 12 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

The question was more for yourself, to make you think about the
complexities of the situation. I doubt if the Great Repeal Bill will go
into the level of detail above, for the hundreds of Directives which
will need considering.

Er, no.

Directives are instructions from EU to member states to legislate, so
their provisions are already
law.

But rely on ECJ caselaw.

There is no such thing

Not in the sense that the result of the case is itself a law.

What a ruling in the ECJ does is require the noncompliance to be amended in
the country's underlying law

once that is done the result of the case is now irrelevant

Will we airbrush that out on Brexit day, or will we (can we even) continue
to rely upon it?

we will be "stuck" with our interpretation the day that we leave.

If someone doesn't like that they will have to ask our courts to adjudicate.
That adjudication might be different from the ECJ's because only the law as
written will be considered, not the original directive's intention.

what's so wrong with that?

Quite right Tim. And ultimately parliament has the power to change the law. That's what the
Referendum was all about.

Tell that to the Daily Mail.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

In message , at 14:24:09 on
Sat, 12 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

So for example, if we automatically adopt the Status Quo of banning the
trade in "abnormally curved" bananas and the expression "abnormally
curved" gets an ECJ ruling changing its interpretation, we could end up
in a very messy situation trying to (re)export green[1] bananas to the
EU.

[1] It only applies to green ones.

All exports have to comply with the standards in the customer's country. For example you wouldn't
be able to sell domestic electrical appliance in the USA which require the UK voltage.

One of the main points about the single market is that if it's legal in
the UK it's legal all over the EU. Splitting that harmony will cost us
money.
--
Roland Perry

On Sat, 12 Nov 2016 16:41:11 +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 14:24:09 on
Sat, 12 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

So for example, if we automatically adopt the Status Quo of banning the
trade in "abnormally curved" bananas and the expression "abnormally
curved" gets an ECJ ruling changing its interpretation, we could end up
in a very messy situation trying to (re)export green[1] bananas to the
EU.

[1] It only applies to green ones.

All exports have to comply with the standards in the customer's country. For example you wouldn't
be able to sell domestic electrical appliance in the USA which require the UK voltage.

One of the main points about the single market is that if it's legal in
the UK it's legal all over the EU. Splitting that harmony will cost us
money.

But UK exports more by value to non-EU countries than to the EU. Do you really expect the rest of
the world to bring their laws into line with the EU?

On 12/11/2016 19:45, Optimist wrote:
On Sat, 12 Nov 2016 16:41:11 +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 14:24:09 on
Sat, 12 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

So for example, if we automatically adopt the Status Quo of banning the
trade in "abnormally curved" bananas and the expression "abnormally
curved" gets an ECJ ruling changing its interpretation, we could end up
in a very messy situation trying to (re)export green[1] bananas to the
EU.

[1] It only applies to green ones.

All exports have to comply with the standards in the customer's country. For example you wouldn't
be able to sell domestic electrical appliance in the USA which require the UK voltage.

One of the main points about the single market is that if it's legal in
the UK it's legal all over the EU. Splitting that harmony will cost us
money.

But UK exports more by value to non-EU countries than to the EU. Do you really expect the rest of
the world to bring their laws into line with the EU?

When it comes to things like standards they do, it's the easy option.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

In message , at 19:45:12 on
Sat, 12 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:
So for example, if we automatically adopt the Status Quo of banning the
trade in "abnormally curved" bananas and the expression "abnormally
curved" gets an ECJ ruling changing its interpretation, we could end up
in a very messy situation trying to (re)export green[1] bananas to the
EU.

[1] It only applies to green ones.

All exports have to comply with the standards in the customer's country. For example you wouldn't
be able to sell domestic electrical appliance in the USA which require the UK voltage.

One of the main points about the single market is that if it's legal in
the UK it's legal all over the EU. Splitting that harmony will cost us
money.

But UK exports more by value to non-EU countries than to the EU.

What's the ratio for consumer items, in other words exclude the things
sold to industry like aircraft engines.

Do you really expect the rest of the world to bring their laws into
line with the EU?

You are missing the point. If your business is mainly domestic, selling
things which pass the UK regs, then at the moment you can expand your
market to the whole EU without a second thought (or any redesign,
re-testing etc).
--
Roland Perry

"Graeme Wall" wrote in message
...
On 12/11/2016 10:38, tim... wrote:

wrote in message ...
On Fri, 11 Nov 2016 14:19:29 -0000
"tim..." wrote:
"Roland Perry" wrote in message
And I honestly don't what the calls for a referendum on the result
of the
negotiations is trying to achieve. If that referendum votes "no"
we'll be
exiting (because that's inevitable) with a blank sheet of paper as an
agreement.

The people asking for it are Remoaners who seem to think that the
alternative option will be "staying in"

Isn't it the Libdems calling for it? Its the kind of moronic thing
they'd do
but of course its coupled with the general remoaner attitude that
somehow the
votes of those who voted Brexit are worth less than their own because
they
delude themselves into thinking that Brexiters are either stupid
and/or ill
informed, didn't really know what they were doing and that only they,
The
Remainers (cue angelic choir), have the gift of True Sight. Of course
this
naive dismissive arrogance common to the liberal elite and student
activists
is why we got Brexit and Trump just won.

I particularly love one of the favourite Remaoner arguments for
remaining in
the EU - "If we'd stayed in we could have changed it". Yes, because
we've had
so much success doing that in the last 40 years haven't we.

And what's more, if we back out now, having actually voted to leave our
chances of shaping the EU along the lines that we prefer in the future
will be reduced to a big fat zero.

Wrong, it's a big fat zero by leaving.

Irrelevant

The people who voted leave are completely disinterested in changing the EU.

It's only the people who voted remain because they believed "stay in to
change it" who care

And they (appear to be) a sizable number.

They are the ones disadvantaged by up crawling back after having decided to
leave.

The EU autocrats, who have so far backed off from the most extreme of
their measures because they were worried that it might "encourage" the
Brits will leave will say to themselves "they are more scared of leaving
than we are of them doing so" so we can do whatever we like and they'll
remain members regardless.

For us, the worst of all worlds. by a mile, IMHO

More scare-mongering.

Oh come on

There are Remoanser claiming that the EU will give us the worst deal
possible, just out of spite, even though doing so will hurt them more than
us.

On that basis that will damned well be fully motivated to give us the worst
deal possible when it doesn't harm them on jot. So why wouldn't they? - I
know I bloody well word, and I'm a considerate guy (often very much to my
disadvantage).

tim