Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

Do you really suggest that UK-citizens should expelled from EU-countries?

Boris Johnson has suggested European leaders can “go whistle” if they expect Britain to pay a divorce bill for withdrawing from the European Union.

Facing questions over the UK’s future after Brexit, the foreign secretary also told MPs that the government had “no plan for no deal” because of its confidence over securing a strong Brexit settlement with the bloc.

[...]Theresa May's official spokesman refuted claims by the Foreign Secretary that the Government had not planned for crashing out of the EU in March 2019 with no deal in place.

It comes as some members of the Government have tried to distance themselves from Theresa May's harder pre-election stance that "no deal is better than a bad deal".

After hearing of Mr Johnson's words, the Number 10 spokesman said: "I've repeatedly said that contingency planning is taking place for a range of scenarios."
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No other countries are likely to follow Britain in leaving the European Union, the Brexit Secretary has said.

David Davis said fears from the European Commission that Brexit would start a domino effect of states leaving the union were “without foundation”.

He argued that Britain was “a very different country” to the rest of the EU and suggested that the UK had decided to leave because of its unique “global reach”.

His comments are at odds with the views of some high-profile Brexit supporters, including US president Donald Trump, who said other countries would be “smart” to follow the UK towards the exit door.

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Theresa May’s deputy has been accused of misleading MPs after insisting cancer patients had nothing to fear from the UK quitting the Euratom agency.

The Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) hit back after Damian Green dismissed doctors’ warnings that radioactive isotopes used in scans and treatments may no longer be available as “scaremongering”.

The Royal College of Radiologists has raised the alarm because the UK lacks reactors to produce the isotopes and relies on imports from France, Germany and Holland, overseen by Euratom.
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Evidence of the fragmented approach to the government’s Brexit strategy has been growing since the election, with separate departments forging their own responses to an apparent policy vacuum at the heart of government. Now the head of the UK’s public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, has issued a remarkable criticism of the government on the subject. Amyas Morse said that he had seen no ministerial plan to push through the necessary legal and statutory changes for the UK to leave the EU. “We have an issue there because we have departmental government,” he said. “What we don’t want to find is that at the first tap it falls apart like a chocolate orange.” Here are five recent examples of the problem:
Drugs letter
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Boris whistling
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Brussels embassy
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Chevening summit
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Treasury lobbying
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[See full report via linked headline]

European Union rules over ownership are fast emerging as a major point of contention as the aviation industry awaits further clarity on what rules for flying will look like after Brexit.

Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary earlier this week told the European Parliament that post-Brexit ownership was a "real issue", and that UK shareholders might be forced to sell shares in the Irish carrier.

At the same hearing IAG Chief Executive Willie Walsh described the ownership systems governing airlines as "arcane". Spanish-registered IAG owns British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling and its shares are listed in both London and Spain.

[...]
Royal bottles duly smashed, anyone hoping for clues as to the ship’s course or likely destination will have been quickly disappointed. The bill’s very first line – “The European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on exit day” – makes clear even the date of departure is currently to be left blank.
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Yet the date is not the only section left blank. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the legislation is its so-called “Henry VIII powers” that grant the government executive power to amend existing legislation without further recourse to parliament. Though this is partly a time-saving exercise as acres of EU law are transposed on to the UK statute book, ministers admit ambiguity is also required because so many of the key features of Brexit remain unclear.

“The bill’s provisions are likely to be straightforward but controversial,” said Robert Bell, a legal expert at Bryan Cave LLP. “The most controversial element being those powers allowing ministers to fast-track the implementation of certain EU laws into domestic law through regulations without parliamentary debate.”

Converting all existing EU law also reflects the need to dodge politically difficult questions about how much Brexit will eventually mean cutting away at this supposed Brussels red tape. Just in case there was not enough to give parliament something to fight over now, the only surprise was a decision to leave the EU charter of fundamental rights behind, thereby gifting Labour the thread it needed to pull on without looking obstructionist.

The other three government publications out on Thursday left even less clue over the likely battles to come. A position paper on nuclear materials and safeguards largely ducks the fierce row over what leaving Euratom will mean for Britain, merely acknowledging: “The UK is keen to discuss this as quickly as possible.”

“It is clear that the UK and the Euratom community have a strong mutual interest in ensuring close cooperation,” reads its Maybot-style conclusion. “There are a number of legal and contractual issues related to nuclear material in both the UK and EU, for which early resolution is important in providing the necessary legal certainty to operators and governments,” it adds delphically.

Another paper on ending the role of the European court of justice after Brexit takes a tougher line, but is spoilt by several references to the fact that a competing EU position “may well be right”, too.

For now, the most significant feature of the government’s position papers and bill is that they exist. ... ... ...

In a warning over the scale of the challenge now facing the government, Lord O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, writes in the Observer that Britain is in for a “rough ride” unless cabinet ministers unite and back a long transition deal to soften the impact of Brexit.

“The EU has clear negotiating guidelines, while it appears that cabinet members haven’t yet finished negotiating with each other, never mind the EU,” the crossbench peer warns. He calls on ministers to “start being honest about the complexity of the challenge”.

“There is no chance all the details will be hammered out in 20 months,” he warns. “We will need a long transition phase and the time needed does not diminish by pretending that this phase is just about ‘implementing’ agreed policies as they will not all be agreed.”

Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain’s former ambassador to the EU, told the Observer that there was now a “one-in-three” chance of Brexit talks collapsing unless the UK drastically reset its plans. He warned that the government still appeared to be “defending a set of propositions that feel tired and totally unrealistic and removed from the realities of these negotiations”. He said a serious offer on future payments was needed, as well as support for a “very substantial transition period” that was similar to Britain’s current EU links.

“I think [the negotiations] could break down quite quickly if, after the autumn, our position on these fundamental issues – the financial settlement, and then the fundamentals of our future relationship – don’t move more in the direction of common sense and economic sense,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s the most likely option, but I think there’s a one-in-three chance at least that that’s the way it will go. And I would say, where we are today, it feels to me that it is at least something like that. And that’s a very sizeable risk.”
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O’Donnell, who served as Britain’s senior civil servant under Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, said that Whitehall needed a boost in resources to meet the challenge ahead. “The Treasury has allocated over £400m for extra staff and knows that much more will be needed,” he writes.

No negotiation. The UK is out - that's it.

France is actively seeking to exploit Brexit to disrupt and degrade Britain's lucrative financial sector, a senior City representative has warned.

Former foreign office minister Jeremy Browne, who acts as the City of London's envoy on Brexit, said the French see the British as “adversaries” in the forthcoming withdrawal negotiations.

In a memorandum leaked to the Mail On Sunday, he said his talks in Paris have been “the worst I have had anywhere in the EU”, with the French open about their desire to see the UK weakened.

Following a visit to the French capital earlier this month, Mr Browne said the mood had been made “more giddy and more assertive” by the election of President Emmanuel Macron.

His comments will reinforce fears among critics of Brexit that other EU countries will exploit the UK's withdrawal to take away lucrative business.
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“If we could negotiate an agreement on remaining within the single market that dealt with all of those issues then that would be fantastic,” Ms Long-Bailey said.

But she added: “I think that’s probably unlikely and we’ll have to be looking at a more flexible approach that maintains the benefits that we currently have in the single market whilst perhaps not being a member.”

On the customs union, the Shadow Business Secretary said: “Again, the position is very similar. We want to maintain the benefits that we currently have within the customs union.

“We want to have our cake and eat it, as do most parties in Westminster.”
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Asked if such an approach was untenable, Ms Long-Bailey said: “That’s the whole point of negotiations. Not to be untenable, but to negotiate the position.

“Our end goal is to maintain the benefits we currently have as part of the customs union and the single market.”

le cul de la laitière.