Brexit and Scexit

Shortly before 1.30pm Sir Tim Barrow, Britain's permanent representative to the European Union, delivered the government's formal notification letter to Donald Tusk thereby triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty:

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Here's the full text of that letter:

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I watched Theresa May's statement to the House after PMQs and it was clear from the questions that followed that statement that, sadly, the SNP has no interest in Britain as a whole and is quite simply stoking enmity between Scots and everyone else to feed its separatist agenda. I wish Teresa May would accede to their wishes and terminate Scotland's membership of the UK forthwith. This is a time when divisions need to be healed and put behind us so that the country can go forward together in the interests of everyone. From their words and their actions, the SNP has no interest in helping to forge the new UK but only interested in whining and promoting its own self-serving agenda, so let's free them of Westminster rule and Westminster's cash.

Interesting times ahead which I'm looking forward to.

Mrs May should have put a on the bottom of the letter.

Surely we can't terminate Scotland's mmbership as they had a referrendum and voted to stay. And we all know how British people abide by referrendum results.

Her constant harping on is irritating though.

No we can't I agree, Graham. I don't know if you watched the Prime Minister's Statement and its Q & A session which started at 12.30 this lunchtime but if you did, you might have a lower opinion of the SNP than simply "irritating". As a group, they appeared to have been "awarded" more question slots than any other party each of which boiled down to one of the holding of a referendum on Scottish independence. To her credit, the PM patiently answered each in turn until it got towards the end of the session when she was quite visibly irritated by having to continuously repeat the same answer 50-plus times.

In last June's referendum, England and Wales voted to leave whilst the majority of Scots and Northern Irish voted to remain. Other than returning broadly the same democratic result, the stance adopted by Scotland's elected representatives couldn't be more different to that of the Northern Irish. Absolutely no talk of independence or unification from any of its Westminster representatives but rather a willingness to work with Westminster on achieving the best outcome for all.

One uncomfortable fact that the SNP refuses to acknowledge is that according to the widely respected Professor John Curtice, some 30+ percent of SNP supporters voted for Brexit. Theresa May pointed this out during her reply to a SNP question which was met by jeering and vigorous head-shaking from those benches.

The SNP knows its demand for Scotland to remain in the Single Market is unrealistic so they're cynically exploiting May's refusal to guarantee Scotland remains in the SM to hold a referendum before the effects of Brexit become felt as any later would likely see such a referendum fail.

A YouGov poll published today gives an increased lead to the Conservatives of 2 points to 43%, 18 points ahead of Labour:

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Asked who would make the best Prime Minister, just 13 per cent now say Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn - against 51 per cent for Mrs May.

According to my desktop currency widget, Britain's triggering of Article 50 has not had a disastrous effect on exchange rates, rather the opposite: the Pound is up half a cent against the Euro and by almost 1 Peso.

Thank you for that, Jim. I've not done an in-depth study merely noted that the graph on the Currency Meter widget shows an upward trend. If it looks that a bad deal is on the cards then I think its likely that both Sterling and the Euro will drop against other currencies.

Interesting to see how the Prime Ministers letter is being interpreted, especially the bit about security which is being regarded as a threat by the EU, to me it was just a statement of fact and in no way a threat or bargaining chip.

It's very early days.

The only prediction that I will make with confidence is that the "political atmosphere" in Britain will become more and more unpleasant as time goes on.

It will be, I think, quite hard for the pro-Brexit people to avoid labelling those of us who see the EU point of view - and there are rather a lot of us -as anything other than "traitors" "fifth columnists" and such like.

In another place, I had a falling out with an old friend - ex RN, ex HK Marine Police - who asserted that Nick Clegg's position is the result of terms in his "long term career Eurocrat's generous pension" which require him to be pro-European. When I pointed out that Nick Clegg's career as a "Eurocrat" amounted to all of five years, two of them in the private office of the late Leon Brittan, negotiating with the Balkans, and called on him to offer evidence in support of his defamatory statement, he was unable to do so. The point I want to make is that he was reduced to an ad hominem attack on Clegg's motives, rather than arguing on the merits.

You say that you anticipate that the "political atmosphere" will become more unpleasant, from a personal point of view I cannot remember when it was pleasant, that's politics for you

I think as time moves on the remainers will get used to the idea that we are leaving the EU, wave the white flag and pull their socks up.

There is only your mates Clegg and Farron that will keep harping on about it, voices in the wilderness, as both these characters have little respect and support from the British people.

from today's FT:

https://www.ft.com/content/cce58e8e-158c-11e7-80f4-13e067d5072c

Before posting a link like the above Andrew could you please send me some money beforehand so I can subscribe to the FT thus enabling me to read the article?

("expletive deleted!") Sorry Timmers - I had thought, because it opened on my browser, and I don't have a subscription, that it would open on everyone's.

Don't worry Andrew, "a person who has not made mistakes has not done anything."

if you really want to read it, Google the heading "EU draws up tough stance on Brexit transition deal" then click the link from within Google itself, it will then open up

Andrew makes a fair point but I sincerely hope he is wrong and that we all re-learn the art of rubbing-along together without ongoing enmity or too much unpleasantness. Our Article 50 notice has been served and the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union. It is up to all of us to make this work, we have a big enough battle ahead with the EU negotiators to secure the very best deal we can because that deal will affect the lives and futures of the 48 percent just as much as the 52 percent. We do not need to be fighting each other.

Tim Farron and his LibDems say they intend to block every Brexit step in Parliament and Gina Miller is yet again threatening to take the government to court if it dares to use the so-called 'Henry VIII' powers to alter bits of EU legislation as the EU's 'acquis communautaire' is embodied into UK statute law by the Great Repeal Act. The 'acquis' includes over 40,000 Acts, 15,000-plus Court verdicts and about 62,000 international standards all of which apply throughout Europe (as at 2015). As I understand it, each individual item must be examined and references to other items changed from referring to a EU item to the equivalent under UK law. This is apparently necessary to avoid legal difficulties and ambiguities. But Mrs Miller seems to disagree. Messrs Clegg and Farron are also wary of this aspect and appear to believe that the government would abuse the Henry VIII power to alter legislation. I rather think that 'real world' rules apply and the actual work - and therefore the exercise of the Henry VIII power - will be undertaken by legally-trained civil servants and not by ministers. Meanwhile Gina Miller is setting herself up for more opprobrium being heaped on her and will no doubt sue the government, claim she's acting in the name of democracy and complain she's had to hire more bodyguards.

As both the FT and the Economist have pointed out today..

http://www.economist.com/news/leade...n/bl/n/20170330n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/uk/19950/n

(see Halo Halo's post 17 above...)

Mrs May doesn't actually have a "negotiating position", there is nothing that she can offer that is of much interest beyond the rights of EU citizens living in Britain, which is balanced off by the rights of British citizens living in Europe, and security co-operation, which it would be folly to withhold. That's why she mentioned these, to our national shame, in the letter which was so crassly splashed across every Government website.

45% of our international trade is with Europe. We do more business with Ireland than we do with India, China and Japan, put together.

But the figures for the EU's trade with Britain are rather different.

You're right Andrew, Mrs May does not have negotiating position, the only one I see is that it is in both parties interests to come up with some sort of deal, the deal will not be as good as being a member of the club but the leavers were already more than aware of this.

And we must remember, once we have disentangled ourselves from the EU we are open to strike deals with the countries you mention, India, China, Japan etc etc.

I expect over the next couple of years and beyond there will be a lot of thumping the table but it will all get sorted in the end.

For me personally, if there is no deal done then we fall back on WTO rules and life will go on, what happens to the British economy is not a great concern of mine as I know it will weather any storms it has to endure and come out stronger at the other side

Lets be positive Andrew