Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

Olivier5 wrote:

You guys too have a governor general.

As any other of the Commonwealth realms.

It has been billed by Jacob Rees-Mogg as the “most exciting contribution” to the Brexit debate in months, proposing a Canada-style free trade deal as an alternative to Theresa May’s Chequers plan.

The free-market thinktank the Institute for Economic Affairs’ report Plan A+: Creating a Prosperous Post-Brexit UK claims it can deliver the “Brexit prize” and has already won the backing of leading Brexiters David Davis and Boris Johnson and former Treasury minister Greg Hands.

It recommends ditching Chequers and introducing a new Anglo-Irish agreement to preserve the open border with a new law in Britain making it a crime to export to the “Irish market” in breach of the new arrangements.

The main points:
NAME OF DEAL
Jacob Rees-Mogg, implying the name did not matter, said it could be called: “Canada plus; Super Canada; or Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Canada.”

DRAFT WITHDRAWAL AGREEMENT
The IEA suggests sticking to the arrangements already made with the EU on the £39bn divorce bill, EU citizens and the transition period. But it says there should be a new backstop for Ireland involving new laws.

CHEQUERS
The IEA says a common rulebook for goods but not services, as suggested under the Chequers proposals, makes trade deals with non-EU countries “all but impossible”.

TRADE
The IEA calls for the elimination of tariffs and quotas on all products the UK does not produce, including foodstuffs that cannot be grown here such as avocados, oranges and rice. It wants to restore sovereignty over British waters in fisheries policy and says the UK should join numerous global trade organisations as soon as possible, including the Cairns Group of agricultural exporters. It says membership of the EU is bad for growth in Britain. It “saddles the UK with regulations that protect large incumbent businesses from competition” and “prevents the UK from entering into its own free trade agreements with countries outside the EU”.

REGULATION
The report’s supporters say they are not suggesting scrapping regulation but are seeking “better” regulation. David Davis, at its launch, said: “The issue on regulation is ‘who decides?’ Under Chequers it’s the EU, under ‘free trade plus’ it’s us that decides.”

IRELAND
It says Northern Ireland will be treated differently to the rest of the UK. It should retain all existing animal and plant food health checks, with the UK committed to updating these for Northern Ireland only in accordance with EU law. It says the UK should pass a law making it a crime to export or knowingly freight “non-compliant” goods to the “Irish market”. Checks extending beyond animals and food, including for medicines, should be done away from the border with close cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic underpinned by a specific Anglo-Irish chapter in the final free trade agreement. It says there should be random checks around the border and on farms and production plants elsewhere.

IMMIGRATION
The report says free movement from the EU should be replaced with a worldwide system that “recognises the economic and social benefits and costs of immigration”.

LONDON, July 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Chubb European Group today announced the achievement of an important regulatory step in its Brexit preparations to redomicile its businesses to France. This provides Chubb customers with continuous, uninterrupted service regardless of the outcome of Brexit negotiations between the UK and the European Union.

On 19 July, both Chubb European Group and ACE Europe Life converted to Societas Europaea (SE), which enables these companies to redomicile to another EU jurisdiction and continue to undertake business both across the EU and into the UK via a branch. Previously, on 11 July 2018, Chubb received authorisation from the Board of the French supervisor Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) to redomicile the businesses to France on 1 January 2019, subject to the fulfillment of certain administrative requirements by year-end 2018.

Liberty announces intention to headquarter its post-Brexit EU operations in Luxembourg
July 04, 2017

Mar 29, 2017

Senior diplomats involved in the negotiations have reacted furiously to the details of a fresh UK proposal for avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland, briefed to the Irish PM, Leo Varadkar, at last week’s Salzburg summit.

Under the solution, May will agree to Northern Ireland potentially staying, in effect, in the single market, as the rest of the UK exits after the transition period, should there be no other way to avoid a hard border at the time.

However, crucially, the UK is insisting that the Northern Ireland assembly, known as Stormont, would have to vote in support of this move before it came into force.

Stormont has not sat for 20 months due to the refusal of the DUP and Sinn Féin to work together. The assembly had a unionist majority from its establishment until the general election of 2017.

EU officials said the British government was seeking simply to push the issue into the future, leaving the backstop solution as an “empty shell”.

The backstop solution, which the EU says needs to be agreed in the withdrawal agreement if the UK is not to leave the bloc without a deal, is the largest stumbling block in the talks.

The UK has agreed there needs to be an insurance policy for avoiding a hard border should there not be a trade agreement or technological solution available by 31 December 2020.

However, the British government has until now rejected the EU’s proposal that Northern Ireland automatically stays in a customs union and under a large bulk of single market regulation as the rest of the UK leaves.

The British position on the single market, although not the customs union, has seemingly evolved, but only on the condition that there is a Stormont veto included.

One senior EU diplomat said there was no legal case for a sub-national body such as Stormont to have a role in the implementation of the withdrawal agreement once it had been ratified into a treaty.

The 1998 Good Friday agreement, which delivered peace to Northern Ireland, gave Westminster the competence to legislate to protect the terms of the peace accord, EU sources insisted.

A diplomat said: “This will not be acceptable to the Irish government nor Michel Barnier. This will be shot down straight away.”

May made a passing mention of her new terms in her bellicose statement the day after the Salzburg summit, where her Chequers plans for the future were torn up by the EU’s leaders.

May said she would soon publish her proposals, adding: “And it will be in line with the commitments we made back in December – including the commitment that no new regulatory barriers should be created between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK unless the Northern Ireland executive and assembly agree.”

The row over Stormont has added to the tense nature of the talks on Northern Ireland, with EU officials further claiming that the Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, had stopped engaging on the subject.

Beyond the issues of single market regulations, the bigger looming row is over how to avoid a customs border being drawn in the Irish Sea.

The EU’s proposal is that Northern Ireland stays in the customs union after Brexit, to ensure there is no need for infrastructure on the border with the Republic of Ireland.

May has repeatedly insisted that no British prime minister could sign up to a plan that it is claimed would constitutionally and economically split the UK in two.

Attempts to “de-dramatise” the issue of a customs border, through ensuring that the majority of checks took place away from ports and airports, has also been rejected by the UK.

A government spokesman declined to comment.

the UK insists