Thursday 24 November 2016

The significance of Brexit negotiations

Brexit is important as it will influence the forthcoming French election and German election. It has to be stated that Marine Le Pen of the Front National should be viewed favourite to become the next French president. In the presidential polls she has a fifteen point lead at 29%. Alernative fur Deutschland are on 14.5% in German polls and the trajectory of their polls suggests they could control the office of Chancellor and the Bundestag after the German election. They already control 145 provincial legislatures in Germany.

The EU has stated that Britain must be forced into a hard Brexit and that Britain would not get access to the EU market of 440 million people. It is interesting to note that the EU actually believes it is in a position to dictate matters. Britain has 3.5 million workers dependent on EU trade whereas the EU has 5.8 million workers dependent on British trade. The EU sells £288 billion of goods to Britain and Britain sells £227 billion to the EU with over £27.86 billion of that being to Ireland. Ireland sells €13.7bn to Britain so Britain needs Irish trade. Big export markets for Britain in the EU also include Germany ($46.5bn), the Netherlands ($34.2bn) and France ($27bn) but crucially Switzerland ($33.6bn) is outside the EU. Britain has trade deficits with Germany, Netherlands and France as they sell $100bn to Germany, $50.7bn to Netherlands and $41.5bn to France. This means Britain has a trade deficit of £61 billion with the EU overall meaning the EU needs Britain more than Britain need the EU. The EU could point out the £227 billion worth of goods amount to 45% of Britain's exports however Britain would remind the EU that only 28% of Britain's produce is exported. Britain is the party negotiating from the position of strength. Trump said Britain is at the front of the queue in terms of doing a trade deal. This makes Britain's position even stronger as the EU plutocrats know a trade deal with Britain is a top priority for Trump not only for the importance of the American economy but the Trump Organization itself has investments and ownership of British and Irish businesses. It is also known that Trump holds an unfavourable opinion of the Brussels leadership. This is important as Britain sells $51 billion of goods to USA annually and US sells $44.4 billion in the opposite direction. Britain and America share the largest direct investment partnership as Britain invests $282 billion in America and America invests $324 billion in Britain. British tourism contributes $14 billion in the American economy every year and American tourism boosts the British economy with £10 billion annually.

On trade Britain are negotiating access to the EU market for their retailers and manufacturers that sell £227bn to EU every year. It would have to be at a low tariff or tariff free as many are small and medium enterprises that cannot afford to contribute the £5.2bn tariffs Britain would have to pay to the EU every year under the World Trade Organisation's rules. They do not want to pay 4.8% on sales to the EU and many couldn't afford to if they were willing. However Britain has the power on the issue. The EU businesses that sell £288bn to Britain would be hit with a £12.9bn annual tariff bill which could have dire consequences for Eurozone economies. EU car manufacturers would pay £3.9bn of said tariffs each year. So if the EU negotiators were smart they would be wise to avoid a trade war with Britain as the tariffs could destroy European economies and bring about the downfall of the Brussels multinational federal superstate. Yet Jean Claude Juncker wants to force Britain into a hard Brexit without access to EU market which would lead to said trade war despite the fact Brussels will be the loser. This is meant to sent out a message that those who exit will be punished. However it could very well motivate Germans and French to vote for vocal Eurosceptics in Alternative fur Deutschland and Front National. Jim Fitzpatrick on BBC Spotlight outlined that a soft Brexit would benefit the Irish economy. If the EU keeps pursuing a hard Brexit they could lose yet another net contributor in Ireland, and that's prior to factoring in €140bn worth of fish caught in Irish waters, as a loss of vital trade with Britain would push an already Eurosceptic Irish public into an Irish exit.

The wealthy plutocracy are undoubtedly on the side of the EU. Richard Branson, of Virgin Group Ltd, has donated over £25,000 out of £1,000,000 worth of donations to Common Ground which is a Blairite group dedicated to overturning Brexit. Further evidence of the plutocracy's disdain for a democratic result was R (Miller, Dos Santos) v Secretary of State for exiting the EU (2016). An over privileged Guyanese investment banker and hedge fund manager Gina Miller used a questionable interpretation of the Case of Proclamations (1610) legal precedent that Royal Prerogative was bound by parliament to delay Brexit. This means Elizabeth SaxeCoburg Gotha cannot give Royal Ascent and sign an Article 50 statute into law without the Commons (lower legislative house) and Lords (upper house) voting on it. The High Court and Supreme Court used a judgement to stop James Stuart ruling by decree to delay implementation of a democratic referendum. Common Ground also have the terrible idea of forcing a path back into British politics for notorious war criminal Anthony Parsons also known as Tony Blair. Blair himself has ruled out a return. If he did return it would go down like a lead balloon with Labour a party now controlled by Bennites and led by Tony Benn's favourite MP Jeremy Corbyn. Blair had purged Bennites when he was in charge of Labour. Now that the Bennites are in charge the right wing Blairites fear the same treatment they meted out to Bennites hence why they are getting behind Common Ground's crazy proposal to the detriment of working class constituents they are supposed to represent. Labour's right wing Blairites have not even accepted the result of the referendum as Owen Smith argued for a second referendum and Blair himself insists that Brexit can be stopped. Right wing Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron still pushes this undemocratic and Europhilic agenda of the plutocracy.

Immigration control is an issue that needs to be addressed. Only Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn raised public awareness of social dumping, when the lowest paid workers from a country are transferred to a second country to drive down the lowest wages, when he derided the Tories and the EU for yellow carding the posted workers directive which would have outlawed the practice. The Tories and EU were foolish to yellow card this directive prior to the referendum. There have been two spikes in British unemployment since 1992. The first was in 1992 when there was further integration and union within the European Economic Community which renamed itself the European Union. The second was in the late naughties when British workers faced fresh competition with workers from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia all countries which had at that time recently joined the EU. A Bank of England report showed that the lowest paid workers decreased by 2% because of the social dumping so corporations could exploit working people. Another aspect of immigration fears is cultural anxiety in relation to Prydain retaining its Brythonic character and Englaland remaining Anglian. An overlooked facet of the Brexit vote was the ethnic and cultural voting blocks. Gaelic and Pictish nations Ireland and Scotland had majorities for Remain whereas the Brythonic nations of England, Wales and Cornwall all had solid majorities for Brexit. It is certain Brythonic nationalism was a factor for the fifteen million English, eight hundred and fifty five thousand Welsh and a hundred and ninety one thousand Cornish Leave voters. If the referendum had been held exclusively in Brythonic nations the winning margin would have been 54% which is two points higher than the actual margin.

Corbyn has told Theresa May he will force an election in 2017 if his Brexit bottom line is not met. He wants access to EU market, worker's rights protected, consumer rights protected, environmental protection and a commitment to match the current level of capital investment. He ought to have demanded a commitment to upholding the Vienna Convention which would have protected the legal rights of EU citizens who entered Britain legally and have not broken any laws. May wants said EU citizens' status on the negotiating table which puts her to the right of Trump ally Nigel Farage who said during the campaign that EU citizens who entered Britain legally cannot be kicked out or deported. This would put British citizens in EU nations at risk. It would be wiser for May to uphold the Vienna Convention, as Britain is a party and signatory to said convention, and negotiate a secure status for British citizens in France as France is neither a party or signatory to the convention. This means France could legally deport British citizens post Brexit vindictively but they would be wise to concede secure status as this would appear to pro Brexit French Eurosceptics as punishment of British neighbours at the behest of EU Commissioners and Councillors. This would help Marine Le Pen and the Front National.

The Express reported that the EU will create its own military force and that the EU expect to levy the charge of the £420,000,000 per annum bill on Britain. If Britain's negotiators are worth anything they will dismiss this preposterous proposition out of hand. In any case the EU already has a military organisation it is called NATO and it has done an untold amount of damage in Europe, Africa and Asia. Another £420m a year on this failing Western imperial expansion and regime change agenda is unnecessary, destabilising and wasteful. Another aspect of immigration fears is linked with the aforementioned as many people want territorial control and border security to deter Wahhabi terrorists, make it more difficult for them to enter Britain and make it easier for security forces and law enforcement to detect Wahhabi militants in the event that they attempt to enter and carry out violence. Wasting more money on a militaristic imperial agenda would motivate Wahhabi militants to attack and some will not be deterred or repelled regardless of how tight and impermeable security infrastructure is. Another legitimate reservation in regard to immigration and security concern of Wahhabi violence was Turkish ascension to the EU. This has been somewhat delayed by the attempted Gulenist coup, the Erdogan crackdown thereafter and stronger Russo Turkish relations since. However a genuine concern of EU citizens is that violent Wahhabi militants active in Syria, Iraq and Kurdistan would be able to attack their nation by travelling to and through Turkey once it became an EU member. Also a few Wahhabi criminals would be difficult to detect and find among 75 million people even with over 20 million security force officers. Motivation for violent Wahhabi zealots to attack Europe would be the EU's contribution to the Zionist military and the illegitimate existence of Medinat Yisrael. The EU's contribution to illegal regime change and destabilising Libya and attempting to do the same in Syria has created fertile breeding ground for crazed far right Wahhabi ideologues. If the EU has no answer to Wahhabi terror as well as Zionist terror then it can expect several exits. The EU arms embargo on Saudi Arabia did not ameliorate Wahhabi terror in Yemen. All previously mentioned terror will create more unfortunate and blameless refugees which will add more strong emotion into what is already a difficult and polarising debate around immigration.

In the run up to the first meeting David Davis had called an MP on a Commons committee Satan when the latter was asking him about Guy Verhofstadt and Verhofstadt remarked it would be “a hell of a conversation”. Manfred Weber the leader of the European People's Party group, the biggest coalition in Brussels EU legislature as a collection of Christians, conservatives and liberals, said to David Davis that free movement is non negotiable. This is delusional and fanciful from Weber as his own Christian Social Union party is not popular in Bavaria as less than a third of Bavarians support them and over two thirds of Germany oppose his party's ally Merkel being reelected. His own party leader Horst Seehofer stated that his own party CSU and Merkel's Christian Democratic Union would suffer heavy electoral defeats. Weber's own CSU party voted to limit refugee numbers to a modest cap of 200,000 people. Also Merkel has lost the support of over 22% of Germans due to a refusal to limit refugee numbers. The CSU are also calling for the abolition of dual citizenship in Germany and ban on the burqa. So this free movement being non negotiable being asserted by Weber is mere fantasy. It would be a gift for AfD if he was to make such an imposition. In any case the EU parliament vetoing a Brexit deal would be self flagellating as it was with the posted workers directive. David Davis said his meeting with Guy Verhofstadt was off to a “good start” and the latter was “a very nice man”. Davis pointed out that a deal was in EU and Britain's interests. Verhofstadt said he wanted a deal done by 2019. He views it as imperative that key essential points are agreed by then and indicated that if a Corbyn Labour government is elected that the EU would view it as a “new and fresh start with new people”.

Britain's Autumn budget has a hole of £122,000,000,000 yet Philip Hammond, who was for Remain, tried to blame the Conservative and Unionist Party's economic incompetence on the democratic result of the Brexit referendum. According to the twisted logic of Hammond it was not Gideon Osborne creating more state debt than all previous Labour governments combined, it wasn't Osborne creating a record structural deficit which is state debt as a percentage of gross domestic product on at least three occasions, it wasn't Osborne borrowing more (£430.72bn) in three years than New Labour did (£429.975bn) in thirteen years, it was not that Osborne inherited a state debt of £960bn and left a state debt of over £1.6 trillion that left a £122bn hole in the budget and that Brexit is more responsible for budgetary holes of £122bn than a state debt of over £1.78 trillion that grows by over £5,170 every second. Hammond would be wise not to link his and his party's utter incompetence with the democratic wishes of the British people.

If May does not get a deal that ensures access to EU market, a deal that controls immigration, a deal that restores full legislative power to Commons and Lords, a deal that protects workers, consumers, the environment and capital investment then a fresh start with new people presiding over Brexit will emerge in a Corbyn led Bennite Labour government with people who have been itching for Brexit since the early 1970's and who will know how to do it. If those in the EU, like Manfred Weber, and Remainers who intend to delay Brexit in hope of overturning it proceed with their plan at their peril. Do they really want to anger and push fifteen million English, a million Scots, nine hundred and forty four thousand Irish (including the three hundred and fifty thousand who voted leave), eight hundred and fifty five thousand Welsh and a hundred and ninety one thousand Cornish Eurosceptics too far? It is one thing for the EU and Europhiles to ignore the Irish vote on Lisbon and enrage six hundred thousand Irish Eurosceptics but it is another thing entirely to attempt the same with eighteen million apoplectic Western Europeans. Such an endeavour and undertaking would be doomed to abysmal failure which only serves to re-emphasise the significance of securing the right deal for all parties involved. The Remainers and Europhiles have to accept the result. There is no other choice for them. Eurosceptics had to accept it when 67% of British voters voted Remain in 1975 and those who wanted alternative voting reform had to concede that 68% of British voters wanted to retain first past the post in 2011. They are the only two previous examples of direct democracy in British history and it would set a dangerous precedent if the third was ignored. The EU does not need to show more disdain for democracy than it did in Denmark in 1992, in Ireland in 2001 and 2008, in Greece in 2015 or in Netherlands in April. If they try to ignore Brexit it will only hasten their own inevitable downfall.  

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