Brexit and Future of UK : Discussions

Pound heading for a crash if Britain fails to get a Brexit trade deal

London (CNN Business)The British pound could plunge by 10% or more if the United Kingdom does not finalize a trade deal with the European Union this weekend.

Currency traders who once assumed a deal would be completed before a Brexit transition period ends on January 1 will be nervously watching events over the next 72 hours after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned late Thursday that the "deal on the table" was not "right" for the United Kingdom.

Johnson traveled to Brussels on Wednesday for dinner with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. But the last-ditch effort failed to produce a breakthrough on thorny issues including fishing rights, government aid for companies and how disputes would be settled. Officials have returned to the negotiating table ahead of a mutually agreed deadline on Sunday.

"The binary outcome [deal or no-deal] is on a knife's edge which potentially sets the pound up for an outsized move once the Brexit saga reaches its finale," Han Tan, a market analyst at FXTM, said in a research note. The fact that the pound hasn't yet "capitulated" against the dollar suggests there's still "pent-up hope" that a deal will be secured, he added.

The pound had been trading close to $1.35 earlier this month when a deal between the United Kingdom and its biggest export market looked more likely. Analysts have warned that the currency could quickly plunge below $1.20 if it becomes clear that a deal is no longer possible. The pound shed 0.6% on Friday to trade just above $1.32 as hopes for a deal took a knock.

Jordan Rochester, a strategist at Nomura, said the currency could weaken further after an initial plunge to $1.20 as UK trade adjusts to life outside the vast EU market of 450 million people.

A fall below $1.20 would push the pound to its weakest level since a shock flash crash in late 2016. It would also complete a dramatic fall for a currency that was trading above $1.45 in the months before the June 2016 Brexit referendum.

A weaker pound could help British exporters cope with the Brexit shock but it would push up the prices British consumers pay for food and other imports.

Time is now running very short. Johnson said he has directed his negotiators to go "the extra mile" in pursuit of a deal ahead of Sunday, but talks have foundered for months on the same set of issues and both sides appear dug in despite the huge economic costs — especially to the United Kingdom — of not reaching a deal.

Johnson said on Thursday that he had directed his cabinet to prepare for talks to fail, and the European Union has released plans aimed at keeping its borders open to commercial aircraft, trains and trucks. Johnson and von der Leyen said earlier this week that a decision would be made by the end of this weekend, but analysts have suggested that yet another extension is possible if substantial progress is being made. The immovable deadline is December 31, the expiry date for arrangements that have provided Britain with all the trade and economic benefits of EU membership after its exit in January 2020.

The cost of Brexit​

Leaving the European Union means higher costs for UK companies under any circumstances, but departing without a new arrangement on trade could be catastrophic. It would leave Britain to trade with its single largest export market on World Trade Organization terms, subjecting the movement of goods and services to tariffs and other barriers.

The UK Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which produces economic forecasts for the government, said in November that even if London and Brussels are able to reach a deal, their new trading relationship is expected to lead to a long-run loss of output of around 4% compared to Britain remaining in the European Union.

201211101639-01-dover-port-1211-exlarge-169.jpg

Trucks backed up on the route into the UK port of Dover to board ferries to France on December 11, 2020.

But a no-deal Brexit would reduce output by an additional 2% in 2021, or some £40 billion ($53 billion), and consign more than 300,000 people to the unemployment line by the second half of next year, according to the OBR.

The United Kingdom is already facing a growing jobs crisis and suffering its worst recession in more than 300 years as a result of the pandemic. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said last month that economic destruction caused by a no-deal Brexit would be worse in the long run than the pandemic.

"It takes a much longer period of time for what I call the real side of the economy to adjust to the change in openness and to the change in profile in trade," he said in testimony before a parliamentary committee.
 
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France gears up for war with European neighbours if locked out of British waters by no deal Brexit​


Henry Samuel
Sat, December 12, 2020, 3:37 PM GMT


The French fear clashes with European neighbours after no-deal Brexit

The French fear clashes with European neighbours after no-deal Brexit
No-deal risks triggering a European fishing war with the French pitted against a mainly Dutch armada competing for dwindling stocks if shut out of UK waters, Gallic fishing bosses have warned.

France this week threatened to veto post-Brexit trade talks over fishing rights and the issue remains one of the main bones of contention that have stymied a deal, along with so-called level playing provisions.

With no deal in sight, Olivier Le Prêtre, head of the Hauts-de-France fishing council - whose small boats fish 70 per cent of their catch in UK waters - said he feared the French would be overrun by European rivals if the UK cut them out of theirs.
 

  • Four armed ships from the UK Royal Navy are on standby to protect British fisheries from French fishermen, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to multiple reports.
  • The four ships would be authorized to board and impound any French or European fishing vessel within 200 miles of the British shore, according to Reuters.
  • "The MOD has conducted extensive planning and preparation to ensure that Defence is ready for a range of scenarios at the end of the transition period," a UK government rep said Saturday, according to reports from Reuters and CNN.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
The British Royal Navy reportedly has put four of its armed ships on standby to protect its coastal waters from French fishermen, as Brexit talks between the UK and EU continue to focus on territorial rights to the sea between the two countries.
 
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I think we at least need to send our aircraft carrier with Rafales and ASMPs and some SNAs to be able to attack London, if necessary. 🥳 👀
Good luck with that surrender monkey. We'll send our subs to sink it and then launch a Trident strike on your country + Brussels.

 
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In the BREXIT negotiations, the EU-27 have, against all odds, demonstrated a flawless unity worthy of all praise. In this vital negotiation for the common future, the defence of the single market served as a unifying principle. It is to be hoped that the Union, freed from the force of inertia and opposition exerted by London, will be able to take advantage of this new configuration to increase its cohesion and strengthen its position in the world. The Brexit highlights the power that the EU-27 can have in unity.
 
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The funny thing about fishing in British waters is that 1. the Brits themselves don't eat those catches, as they don't like these types of fish, 2. British fishermen, by and large, do not have freezers on their boats, and 3. the place where they go to sell their fish and have it processed is Boulogne-sur-Mer, in France (largest fish processing center in Europe).

So with Brexit, British fishermen will finally get to be the only ones to catch fish species that they can't sell fresh at home, that they can't process for export at home, and that they will not be able to process for export in a timely manner anymore. This is called "a huge win for Britain", I believe.
 
The funny thing about fishing in British waters is that 1. the Brits themselves don't eat those catches, as they don't like these types of fish, 2. British fishermen, by and large, do not have freezers on their boats, and 3. the place where they go to sell their fish and have it processed is Boulogne-sur-Mer, in France (largest fish processing center in Europe).

So with Brexit, British fishermen will finally get to be the only ones to catch fish species that they can't sell fresh at home, that they can't process for export at home, and that they will not be able to process for export in a timely manner anymore. This is called "a huge win for Britain", I believe.
I keep hearing that but I don't believe it to be true. We don't eat Cod and Haddock?

A fish processing centre, damn such technology is well beyond our grasp.
 
In the BREXIT negotiations, the EU-27 have, against all odds, demonstrated a flawless unity worthy of all praise. In this vital negotiation for the common future, the defence of the single market served as a unifying principle. It is to be hoped that the Union, freed from the force of inertia and opposition exerted by London, will be able to take advantage of this new configuration to increase its cohesion and strengthen its position in the world. The Brexit highlights the power that the EU-27 can have in unity.
It'll do for now, gives us time to work on new trade deals. The way I see it, £18bn financial services surplus blocked, only £6bn of that comes back as tax. £11bn saved by not being in the EU. Customs paperwork and formalities on goods affects the EU's £97bn good surplus. Not being in Erasmus, £1bn/year saved. Fishing quota effectively doubled in 5 years - £1bn (£330m in taxes). That's pretty good before we even get onto immigration costs direct and indirect (benefits, remittances, custody for convicts, slave runners etc.).
 
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British PM Johnson's father applying for French citizenship

PARIS (Reuters) - The father of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday he was in the process of applying for a French passport to maintain his ties with the European Union after Brexit.

Stanley Johnson, a former member of the European Parliament who voted Remain in Britain’s 2016 referendum, told RTL radio he wanted to become a French citizen because of strong family links to France.


“If I understand it correctly, I am French. My mother was born in France, her mother was totally French as was her grandfather. So for me it is about reclaiming what I already have. And that makes me very happy,” said the 80-year-old Johnson, who was speaking in French.

“I will always be a European, that’s for sure. One cannot tell the British people: you are not Europeans. Having a tie with the European Union is important,” he added.


His son Boris was the public face of the Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum and says Britain can “prosper mightily” as a fully sovereign nation outside what he sees as an overly bureaucratic EU.

But on Wednesday the prime minister sounded a more concilatory note as parliament approved a new trade deal with the EU, saying: “This is not the end of Britain as a European country. We are in many ways the quintessential European civilisation... and we will continue to be that.”

The United Kingdom officially leaves the EU’s orbit on Thursday night, after an often strained 48-year liaison with the European project.
 
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Britain braces for not-so-special relationship with Biden


Paris preferred over London​

While President-elect Biden and his team respect Britain’s choice to leave the EU, Democrats nonetheless tend to view Brexit as a poorly executed policy.

Secretary of State-designee Antony Blinken has called Brexit a “total mess,” while Kupchan called it “an act of self-isolation that will inevitably diminish Britain’s weight in the world.”

They also lament that Britain’s departure from the EU will make it harder to influence the unwieldy 27-member club. Britain’s open economy often acted as a counterweight to the protectionist instincts of France and Germany. “The U.S. lost its most effective EU member,” said a former senior American diplomat. “Now life for the U.S. becomes more complicated. We have messier coalitions to deal with.”

Kupchan said Brexit merely accelerates a trend since the end of the Cold War, of Washington engaging more directly with Paris and Berlin. Paris has the edge because of its defense investments. “What will really irritate the U.K. is we will now return to engaging the EU as an essential partner, and it’s fair to see France as on the up,” said a former senior American diplomat. “France is the one that still aspires to be a global actor and has more ambition,” said Ellen Laipson, director of George Mason University’s Center for Security Policy Studies. :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:

Senior Democrats back Biden’s wish to prioritize better relations with the EU. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a close Biden ally, wants a trade deal with the EU to take priority over the U.K. deal. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee has also urged the incoming administration to renew trade negotiations with the EU.

Biden will continue to follow the U.K.’s negotiations with the EU, particularly how peace arrangements in Northern Ireland are handled. “Folks are watching what’s happening, where that lands,” said a person familiar with the president-elect’s thinking.

While the Biden team welcomes the U.K. government’s Dec. 8 recommitment to uphold the Good Friday Agreement in full, that move doesn’t guarantee or speed up a bilateral trade deal, which remains a “separate discussion,” the person said.

In other words, Britain will have to earn its trade deal.

“I think the ball is really in the U.K.’s court,” said Lukens, the former ambassador. “Whether Boris and his team are capable of developing a worldview beyond Brexit remains to be seen.”
 
The fishing ban is quite ridiculous. Politics has won over a sound mind. And I think Britain is at fault here.

Norway should invite Chinese fishermen and Trawlers

They will show Norway how to
"Steal Fish " from UK waters 🤣

Both of them can share the loot
 
The fishing ban is quite ridiculous. Politics has won over a sound mind. And I think Britain is at fault here.
Britain agreed 2-way access on fishing with the EU bot with a reduced quota for EU fishermen, but Norway is not in the EU, only the EFTA.