AND NOW THE BILLS START TO COME IN

Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator is set to present the UK with a bill for 49 billion euros as our contribution to commitments entered into during membership (HERE). In other reports he is said to have a formula rather than an actual figure but I assume this is the figure his formula produces at the moment.

It is also claimed that this sum must be negotiated and agreed before talks can begin on our future relationship with the EU. There will be enormous pressure on David Davis from Brexiteers to pay nothing and from industry to pay whatever is needed to secure tariff free access for as much of our exports as possible.

UK TO LEAVE THE SINGLE MARKET?

Theresa May appeared on TV at the weekend in order to counter the impression that she does not know what she is doing. Unfortunately, it only seemed to confirm that she doesn't. We learned very little as usual.

What she did say was the UK would have control of its borders and the best possible trade deal with the EU. She didn't commit to maintaining "single market access", and she suggested that people who thought the country could keep "bits of EU membership" were missing the point that it "would be leaving". If one believes that the single market is indeed a "bit" of the EU then it looks like we're leaving.

I note the pound dropped 0.87% against the dollar ($1.21770) and 1.04% against the Euro (now trading at 1.15440). Every time she suggests we will have a hard brexit the pound falls.  If this turns out to be the actual plan the markets will pronounce on it.

FORMER EU ENVOY NOW QUITS CIVIL SERVICE

Sir Ivan Rogers who resigned last week as UK envoy to the EU (HERE) has now resigned from the civil service (HERE) or at least he has indicated he does not want another job in government. This does not surprise me after the coverage he has had from the mad brexit press.

However, a Canadian who was closely involved with the CETA trade negotiations has written a piece for The Observer (HERE) where he says Sir Ivan was right and a UK/EU trade deal could take ten years to settle. He says:

“Were they [pro brexit UK officials] willing to realistically discuss options for Brexit, as opposed to telling you what they intend to do in a general sense while dismissing the obvious concerns, they may have a chance to minimise the damage from the potentially catastrophic decision to leave. This seems increasingly unlikely. Let’s hope that the courts, parliament and, ultimately, the electorate do it for them.”

UK ENVOY TO EU RESIGNS

Sir Ivan Rogers, our most senior envoy to the EU has resigned to predictable comments from both sides of the argument. InFacts (HERE) thinks we will be stuck in denial and The Guardian (HERE) quotes someone as saying it is the wilful destruction of EU expertise. Meanwhile in The Spectator a contributor says brexiteers will cheer his departure (HERE) and The Telegraph (HERE) says Mrs May should recruit someone who is positive about brexit.

This government's attitude to experts is troubling.  They may have difficulty finding someone sane who will tell them that throwing the nation off a cliff is a good thing. Anyone who understands the EU will surely not be in favour of leaving.  Those in favour of leaving will not understand the EU.

His replacement will therefore be a matter of some interest. The New Statesman (HERE) says he or she will need rose tinted spectacles and I suspect, a thick skin.

GERMAN CAR BOSS WARNS OF MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

The head of the German automobile industry, Matthias Wissman, has written for a German newsparer saying that it would be mission impossible because Britain and the EU would face "massive negative effects" if we leave the single market (HERE).

Some 57 per cent of the cars made in Britain are purchased by buyers in the rest of the EU. The next largest market is the US (12 per cent), followed by China (7 per cent).

In October, Matthias Wissmann warned that the UK leaving the single market could force companies to move their business elsewhere. His comments marked the first time a senior figure in the German car industry publicly outlined the consequences from a change to Britain’s trading arrangements with the EU.

LEAVE MEANS LEAVE URGES HARD BREXIT

The campaigning group Leave Means Leave are urging the PM to get out of the EU with a hard brexit and without any transitional deal (HERE).  Not satisfied with getting us over the cliff they want us to have a jetpack on the way down.

"The UK must leave the EU within two years of triggering Article 50," Richard Tice and the completely mad John Longworth, the co-chairmen of the organisation, wrote in a letter to the prime minister setting out their principles for the talks ahead.

Meanwhile another prominent brexiteer Moulton was on radio 4 yesterday morning says he was and is still in favour of Brexit but he admits to being surprised how complicated it all is. I am surprised that he is surprised. Given all that was said and published by those in government who knew just how difficult it would be it is amazing that any intelligent human being could be surprised.

Essentially he says no one knows what Brexit is going to be like and yet he is still in favour of it!

He always seemed to me a smart business man but he seems to think we are in the worst possible position now and hence anything is preferable to it. We shall see.

MAY LACKS COURAGE TO EXPLAIN REALITIES OF BREXIT

In a remarkably astute piece, the head of the First Division Association, Dave Penman says the PM is struggling to find the political courage to admit there will be difficulties with the brexit negotiation (HERE). He says the civil service is not going to be able to fulfill all of the ordinary policy agenda and cope with the brexit negotiations which are said to be the most complex we have ever undertaken. The civil service is at its smallest for many years but faces a huge task. The BBC report it HERE

I have always thought that this is what will happen.  Davis, Fox, Johnson, Gove and all the others will never admit to having any doubts and will take us all over a cliff if it means saving face. We are all going to pay a very high price for their face.

CHANGE BRITAIN'S FIGURES RIDICULED

Response to Change Britain's "research" (see HERE) has been utterly scathing. Any number of expert economists including Jonathan Portes have joined forces and described it as junk (HERE).

The Independent suggest rather mildly that we should take it with a pinch of salt (HERE) while Sam Bowman of the Adam Smith Institute describes the claims of £450 million a week as "complete rubbish" (HERE). Richard North at EUReferendum says it isn't even research (HERE) and muses on how some of the national press even accepted it.

The Lib Dems say the figures are fantasy (HERE) and (HERE). It turns out the figures are even worse than I thought.  The basic savings in EU contributions don't even exist as Richard North points out in this well argued piece (HERE).  And in the "savings" from dumping EU regulations the number has been whittled down from the £32Bn originally suggested by Open Europe before the vote, to £1.2Bn of which £1.0Bn is saved by doing away with the Data Protection Act!!  The remainder is from some supposed EU regulations governing motor vehicles which actually comes from the UN and which we couldn't save anyway.  Stunning!

What is worrying is that this is the best they have to offer. These are the supposed benefits accruing from brexit and none of them are anywhere near being possible or even reasonable.

CHANGE BRITAIN - SAME OLD LIES

Change Britain, one of the successor organisations to Vote Leave have published a "report" (HERE and HERE) claiming we would be better off by £450 million a week or £24 billion a year if we go for a "clean brexit", that is leave the single market and the customs union. The so-called report is a bit simplistic and assumes our trade with the EU suffers no damage at all!  This is an amazing (but unspoken) assumption made in the report which only calculates savings in EU contributions and regulations plus increased trade with other countries. The Guardian's take is HERE. It seems like they are simply continuing their dishonest campaign and are determined to see us out of the EU regardless of the economic damage.

The regulatory savings include thing like Batteries and Accumulators (Placing on the Market) Regulations 2008; Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009 which they claim would save £17.53 million a year.  But it would also presumably make it impossible for any UK manufacturer to export to the EU. The same applies to Welfare of farmed animals.  The alternative is for UK companies to have two sets of regulations to follow!

The Huffington Post (HERE) notes that the OBR said we would be worse off by £122 billion by 2020.

And now this morning the BBC reports (HERE) that prominent leave campaigner John Longworth has written to all 27 EU members Chambers of Commerce, urging them to pressure their government to allow free trade to continue. If I was in one of these chambers I would firstly think he has amazing chutzpah considering he campaigned hard to get OUT of the single market free trade area and secondly I would be concerned that Britain doesn't want to follow the rules but prefers to try and undercut companies in Europe by reducing standards - which would be very unfair.

ECJ RULING ON SINGAPORE MAKE BREXIT HARDER

The ECJ has today published the opinion of its Advocate General (HERE), stating that the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement ‘can be concluded only by the European Union and the member states acting jointly.  Although the ECJ has to finally rule on this, it would be a surprise if they found the Advocate General (a British woman by the way) was wrong.

This means almost certainly that our future trade deal (if there is one) will be deemed to be mixed and will require ratifying by all the member states as well as the commission. The job of the chief negotiator Michel Barnier just got a lot more difficult with far less room for compromise.

CBI SAYS BARRIER FREE ACCESS NEEDED

The CBI has said that "barrier free" access is required after brexit (HERE) more or less echoing what the Breugel think tank said a few days ago (HERE).

One wonders if anyone in government is actually listening to these voices. If they are and we find ourselves edging towards a very soft brexit with "controlled" but not necessary less immigration, payments still being made to the EU and the ECJ still having power over what we do I wonder what the mad brexiteers will do.

We will have put ourselves through one of the most divisive events of modern times for virtually nothing and with everything looking pretty much like it does today. Except we will have much less influence.

THINK TANK SAYS WE SHOULD STAY IN SINGLE MARKET

Breugel, a European think tank believes it is important for us to remain in the single market (HERE) even to the extent of paying money to the EU.  They say we will be affected by brexit much more than the EU and WTO tariffs will add £4.5 billion to the costs of the automotive industry alone. 

While other sectors like chemicals/minerals and electronics/optical equipment will be much less affected other service based sectors like retail, distribution and finance will be, albeit to a lesser extent than cars.

MAY SNUBBED ON UK EXPAT RIGHTS

The Telegraph is reporting that Mrs May was greeted with silence when she raised the question of the rights of EU nationals here and UK expats in Europe at a summit this week (HERE). As usual, the pro brexit Telegraph makes it appear as if we were the wronged party rather than the one to blame for the mess.

Apparently, when the silence went on for an embarrassingly long time she is alleged to have said, "I think I’d better leave now."  Isn't it all pathetic and a terrible harbinger of things to come. We haven't even started negotiating yet and there is already ill feeling.  

The same piece carries a report that yesterday Tory MPs called for Theresa May to be legally bound to trigger Brexit negotiations by the end of March to stop remain campaigners from sabotaging Britain's exit from the EU. Peter Bone, the lunatic MP for Wellingborough, proposed the Bill that would legally force the Government to trigger Article 50 by the end of March next year.  So, when we are on the cliff edge he will be behind us with legislation forcing us all to leap off.  Madness!

BREXIT BILL WILL BE £50 BILLION

Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, is reportedly suggesting (HERE) our bill for brexit will be up to £50 billion in money that we have already committed to and for pension and other residual costs from our membership. This is just one of the myriad items to be settled in the withdrawal agreement and before the trade talks even begin.

Update:  Mrs May has rejected the £50 billion figure. He spokesman has said a figure for our liability arising from membership "does not actually exist" (HERE) which I take to mean that even we haven't yet worked out how much leaving the EU will cost.

INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT REPORT

The Institute for Government (IFG) has produced a report about the progress in Whitehall on preparations for  brexit (HERE). It is worrying that the government are trying to carry out planning for brexit with a civil service smaller than it was before WW2 and with a full programme of work that was in place before brexit was even a possibility.

Sky News is saying that the report's authors believe that secrecy is damaging preparations (HERE).

The report also says the Great Repeal Bill is going to be far more complicated than many people first thought.

HAMMOND THINKS TRANSITION PERIOD NEEDED

The chancellor, Phillip Hammond has told a select committee that in his opinion a transition period will be needed after the two year period to "cushion" our exit from the EU (HERE).  This won't come as a surprise to most thinking people but to brexiteers it will be anathema.

They are capable of phenomenal self-delusion and think everything can be done more or less overnight without any problem at all. Of course, this is true of most things you are not doing yourself.

DECADES BEFORE WE KNOW IF BREXIT IS WORKING

James Forsyth in The Spectator (HERE) says it will be "decades" before we know if brexit has been a success or not but still seems to think it is a good thing.

I believe he is being optimistic. Leave voters are not going to give him decades. He likens it to a revolution but we are not like the Russians who accepted jam would always be arriving tomorrow for seventy years. Unless people are better off by 2018 (as David Davis said they would) brexit will be toast.

EU CITIZENSHIP MAY BE POSSIBLE AFTER BREXIT

Reuters (HERE) and The Independent (HERE) are both carrying stories that the EU are seriously considering offering citizenship to Britons after brexit.  I think this would be a perfect way to retain close ties with Europe until we can rejoin the bloc. However, many leave politicians are absolutely opposed to it - as usual.

UPDATE:

It seems the EU parliament will not be discussing this - for the moment - see HERE

EU CHIEF NEGOTIATOR SAYS DEAL BY OCTOBER 2018

Michel Barnier gave his first press conference (HERE) in which he said a deal needs to be reached by October 2018 in order to give time for ratification by EU member states and the parliament.

However, I think there was also an interesting point he made in answer to a French journalist's question about withdrawal and trade negotiations and whether they would be simultaneous or sequential. I think he said that the trade deal would begin when we are a third country which I took to mean we won't be able to discuss the trade deal until after we have left.

Oddly, very few journalists picked this up. The only story I can see is by James Forsyth in a Spectator blog (HERE) who says:

"But Barnier’s position is that only once this deal has been agreed, can talks move on to what the future relationship between the UK and the EU will be. In other words, no talks on trade until the exit process has been agreed".

This is all going to drag on for years and years.

NOW WE MAY STAY IN THE EUROPEAN PATENT SYSTEM

Hot on the heels of indications our position on payments into the EU and migration are beginning to soften (HERE) it has been announced that we are going to ratify plans to create a European wide patent court (HERE). Apparently, some leavers had assumed we would pull out of this but now it appears not.

Andrew Lilico, the pro-Brexit executive director of Europe Economics, said the move was “the first really concrete commitment of the Government towards Brexit, and as it stands it implies the softest of soft Brexits, much softer than has been discussed”.  Let us hope he is right.

It seems we are going to demolish our European house and painstakingly rebuild it brick by brick 10cm to the left!  The difference finally will be so small as to be almost unnoticeable.