Verbal

There is no queue. Trump won at least in part on a promise to the rustbelt states that he would undo the 'damage' of NAFTA, TTP, and the prospective TTIP. Why would negotiating a trade deal with anyone, while trying to unpick ALL the others, be anywhere near a 'queue? By the way, Fox's much trumpeted decision to set up city offices in the US seems to have precious little to do with reciprocal trade deals as such, despite his wider rhetoric. Her's set one office up in Minneapolis - and apart from some farm stuff the only big players in that city are multinational health care companies. The biggest is UnitedHealth, which is judged to be the worst major health company in the US. It also already has extensive contracts in the NHS. As Dr Fox would know.

Great news! Let's hope it's an MBE next. Perhaps for services to space travel?

What strange times we live in when Wilders-adoring extreme-right Dutchmen, dodgy deckchairs-for-the-elderly salesmen and Corbynista virtue-signalling ****wits all ally in their opting for Trump as the better candidate.

He was thinking about the French revolution.

The WHY is buried in eighteenth century history but is now relevant. It was to provide a buffer in case the electorate voted in a raving loon.

Why? The full quote from Clinton is a simple statement of deterrence policy, is it not? In this case it's in response to a hypothetical question about Iran launching a nuclear attack on Israel: Well the question was ‘if Iran was to launch a nuclear response, what would our response be’ and I want Iran to know that if I’m the President, we will attack Iran; and I want them to understand that because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps would deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic

Good. It just shows how poorly Cameron and Osborne led the Remain campaign (if you want more, read Craig Oliver's book), and the low levels of knowledge about what the single market actually is, on both sides. It's depressing that there is a more detailed awareness of the nuances of Brexit after the actual vote on it. (Who was debating about Article 50 before the vote?) Even now, though, there seems precious little understanding of the significant of the customs union, and still lots of confusion about 'membership' and 'access' to the single market - as well as general uncertainty about whether triggering Article 50 is irrevocable or not (the court case was lost because the government case was that it was irrevocable, which led the judges inexorably to the conclusion that primary legislation couldn't be cancelled by decree). As things now stand, all we have is 'Brexit means Brexit' countered by 'Unconstitutional means Unconstitutional'. May's strategy, in the Cameron tradition, is every bit as muddled and incompetent. She's a true ally of neither Remain or Leave.

Can you provide a link to some of the many times Cameron said that 'to leave the EU means to leave the single market'?

You appear not to understand the ruling. It's a ruling against May's strategy, not the referendum. There is nothing 'farcical' about a court making a ruling on matters of law. If you want to vent, vent at the extremely poor presentation of the government's case by the attorney general.

That would be a wonderful irony, but the ECJ rules supreme on matters of European law. This wouldn't count: it's up to nation states to decide the means by which they trigger Article 50.

This is the lounge. It only has a family resemblance to a football forum.

Now that Clark has inadvertently shown the government's hand, this article in the FT is a really interesting take on the revelation that a firm promise was made to Renault-Nissan - and now to all UK motor manufacturers - about tariff-free trading within the customs union. A key point is that the EU simply won't negotiate sector-by-sector access - just as it won't for the internal market - and the UK is either in or out of the customs union, which is the only way that tariff-free trading with the EU will happen. But for those with the nous to see where this is really going, the important thing to pay attention to in the article is the term 'transitional period', which could be anything up to or even beyond a decade. https://www.ft.com/content/cd0d2ad4-9d23-11e6-a6e4-8b8e77dd083a The other enjoyable consequence of all this is that Fox no longer has a real job. We should have a sweepstake on which of the three Brexiter clowns will be the forest to resign. Fox is certainly emerging as a frontrunner...

So this is all going very well. It turns out the government DID promise a kind of selective customs union membership for Nissan (44% French owned, remember). And since Clark's interview yesterday, spilling some beans, it turns out that actually ALL UK car makers/assemblers will be able to keep their supply chains tariff-free. So the carmakers either have unfettered access to the customs union or the government will by its own promises have to compensate them to an unaffordable extent not seen since the 1970s. But car making is just 3% of the economy. Bigger players, like the UK's big pharma industry, are now demanding the same deal. This has only one plausible outcome, if we exclude the possibility of absolutely crippling subsidy guarantees: the UK will have to remain in the customs union. (For the benefit of schmendriks, Lord T, the customs union is basically the rules of the original EEC - you know, the thing Thatcher approved of and voted for.) Then we have even bigger players, like financial services - the biggest of all sectors, representing 15% of the economy. The demand for passporting rights will be next on the list, forcing the government to take a position on full access to the internal market. (For the benefit...the internal market was a Thatcherite initiative, to liberalise trade within the EU - hence the nebbish churlishness from Corbyn.) Again: mazel tov!

Which tells me you have no idea what the customs union is. Or why it's a red line for supply chain companies like Nissan.

This seems familiar. Is it an extract from Mein Kampf?

You understand what that means? It means this government has committed to remaining in the customs union. That's the only way that a guarantee that 'no cheques will be written' can be honoured. Which means no free trade deals with non-EU countries. Mazel tov!

One of the many weirdnesses of the Leave position is that it's premised on the conviction that the EU is dysfunctional. The EU then demonstrates that dysfunctionality by rejecting the CETA trade deal with Canada by the margin of a fraction of one small country. And yet Leave's leaders still say there's some 'have our cake and eat it' trade deal ready to be collected when Article 50 is triggered - in the belief that the EU will act rationally. Delusional.

Nope. You can do the brown-nosing thing about keeping quiet until the government declares its handful of jokers, but the rest of us are fully entitled to have an opinion, and to read the warning signs of this impeding disaster. After all, however we voted, we're all passengers in this car crash. As demonstrated by the severe ear-bashing May got from European leaders last night, the Tories' delusions may be unshakeable but they remain delusions all the same. Now back to that question: from your superannuated, tripled-locked loft, what do you say to those whose breadline income is being eroded by the Brexit sterling crash? So far, as I predicted, not a single word - not even a mealy-mouthed cliche slavishly borrowed from the three killer clowns. PS. Had to laugh at that ****wit quoting chairman's statements in annual reports.

Translation: you have no answers, not even from your gullible and blind acceptance of the 'let's all stay schtum' mantra from the three killer clowns. Here's one of many canaries in the coal mine - a small (250 employees) Lincolnshire costuming company called Smiffys, with the lion's share of its business in the EU single market, is upping sticks. Their reasons are damning, and will apply to an awful lot of companies in the UK with trading interests in the EU. Mr Peckett said: “Smiffys have no choice but to protect our business by moving our headquarters to the EU. This will allow us to continue growing our trade to the EU, from within the single market." Prior to joining the single market, Smiffys exported only a tiny fraction of their current sales to the EU. “Both Smiffys and its European customers were then faced with bureaucratic and administrative barriers, not to mention the costly import duties that our products attracted, making us uncompetitive,” Mr Peckett explained. “Going back to these times would feel like a step back in time and a lost opportunity to freely access a trading bloc of over 500 million people,” he added. The company also employs a number of EU nationals, whose futures in the UK are now wrapped up in the shenanigans of the Brexiteers. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-smiffys-business-moves-leaves-uk-europe-hq-exodus-a7371956.html Other companies and banks have warned that they'll start making relocation decisions in early 2017 - years before any 'deal' is actually struck, if it ever will be. So goes the piece-by-piece dismantling of the British economy.

Your schnozzle gets longer with each post. Britain can't do more than have the most cursory of discussions about trade with non-EU countries because it hasn't decided (as if that were unilateral!) whether to go for soft Brexit (membership of internal market) or hard Brexit (economic collapse). If the former were actually the outcome, practically all discussions with non-EU countries would have to start from scratch because Britain is not allowed to offer a trading backdoor to the EU market for non-EU countries. Even with the latter, the version of hard Brexit would have to be extreme - no exceptions whatsoever for, say, the car industry and the financial services industry - for Britain to follow through on any trade talks with non-EU countries. Any news, from your superannuated corner of locked in, inflation-proofed benefits, what you'd say to people on non-pension benefits, whose breadline income is already being cut by the hard Brexit-induced run on the pound and the consequent spike in inflation?

Another hoax, which has been doing the rounds for about a year. The absurd 'article' most certainly did not appear in the New Yorker. What the hell is wrong with you? And if you have something to say, say it yourself and stop spamming this thread with completely made up conspiro-cretin garbage. Also, the occasional link wouldn't go amiss.

You're right. It's a hoax. And it's from a notorious liar and cartoon conspiro-creep who only gets away with this kind of stuff because the world is not short, sadly, of freakishly stupid people ready to post his videos. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/06/james-okeefe-brings-his-dishonest-doctored-vide/201026

You go ahead and give blind support to the American Jimmy Savile if you like. But just so you know, it's not a good look.

Hardly surprisingly, you don't address the point. While you sit cosily on your superannuated pension, inoculated from the effects of Brexit, what do you say to those on benefits who will experience losses on breadline income as a result of inflation following the (ongoing) nosedive of the pound? As I say, prove that you actually give a ****.

I wonder what the Brexiteers will say to those on benefits, which (unlike your pension) are frozen until 2019/20 while inflation is set to rise to 3.5% pa. As you want to have your cake and eat it, I imagine 'let them eat cake' will fit pretty well. Aren't you luck you don't have to give a ****?