Brexit

except they dont offer every country completely uniform identical deals so they aren't bullying us by offering terms unique to our situation. they are worried we will just undercut them which I do not think is an unreasonable worry to have about our government as they cannot be trusted and do not keep their word.

 

I know the reasons why and we need to make the most of those worries.

If the EU will accept items being .made in Chinese or Moroccan sweatshops to be sold in their area then they can't come all high and mighty about us needing to live by their standards.

And it still doesn't answer my question about why we would want a foreign organisation setting our rules for us.

 

Except they aren't and people have said this to you several times now. question answered.

 

You did answer that question before and I appreciate it, but you answered it from the point of view of the EU and really I'm interested in the opposite. It's obvious why the EU would want to limit the flexibility of a competitor but I can't for the life of me think of a reason why we'd accept it. If goods in Morocco can be made in sweatshops and sold into the EU but the exact same items can't be made in the UK because the company don't pay the "right" amount of tax or the employees don't get enough holidays then why would we ever accept that? It's the complete opposite of the level playing field.

I 100% see it from the EU's point of view but lets not pretend this "level playing field" isn't completely negotiable. Competition within the SM is one thing but we are now, and will continue to be, outside of that. They have signed trade deals in the past that don't require common environmental and employment standards so why do we talk like they are prerequisites? It's all negotiable.

 

Sorry, which bit of that are you saying doesn't occur?

And it still doesn't answer my question about why we would want a foreign organisation setting our rules for us.

 

I honestly think originally it was about making a point with regards the UK having the audacity to question the EU and the way it was going in the future, they needed to try and frightening the UK into believing it's the end of the world leaving the EU and we won't be able to survive in the big world on WTO, and of course keeping other EU countries in line.
I don't have a problem with the EU trying to make it hard but they say we can't have a deal similar to the likes of Canada, Japan or South Korea because we're too near the EU, do they seriously believe after the dealings we've had with the EU negotiators we wont undercut EU tariffs, once out we will do exactly what we want with regards bettering the UK.

 

I don't have a problem with the EU making it hard either, I fully expected them to negotiate with us on the basis of us being competitors and rightly so.

What I can't get my head around is people in the UK accepting that tough stance from the EU but expecting the UK to negotiate as "friends". If one side of a negotiation is trying to be friendly and the other side are trying to be competitive then you might as well bend over and take it.

Whenever the UK does something that might "upset" the EU there seems to be outrage but if the EU do something that shouldn't be acceptable to us the narrative is quite of then that they 100% can't move from that. Even if you can point out other occasions when they have moved on the exact same position.

Whenever you are negotiating with a larger competitor the main point you have is that you can increase your flexibility and become more competitive on your own. If you gave that up then why even bother negotiating at all?

 

Once again I completely agree that the EU won't want to impede the integrity of the single market.

We can move on from Morocco and Turkey if you like and talk about Japan if that helps. I'm sure they are at the forefront of AI and Robotics and they have a trade agreement without standardisation of economic and environmental standards.

If we go outside of the EU but agree to terms that are worse than other countries in the same boat.....so why would we? It doesn't make any sense to agree to that.

As for leverage, once again I don't particularly think we have loads, but a simple sense of scale means that accepting a worse deal than other smaller economies is completely non-nonsensical. The real point though is in the language we use - making out like the EU rules are absolutely set and that we should just accept whatever they deem to give.

 

And I'd be fine with exactly the same woolly paragraph in our trade deal.

What it doesn't do is give the EU powers to dictate Japan's internal standards and rightly so.

 

As has been said many times with regards leaving/brexit why would we want a remainer to negotiate any deal that they were not really wanting, not once during the original talks did Theresa May mention walking without a deal Barnier actually made the quote, how could the EU negotiators keep a straight face embarrassing.
The nearer she got to doing a so called deal the more of her brexit negotiators resigned, David Davis, then Dominic Raab walking out after being ask to sign the last negotiated document by Theresa May, walking out after resigning stating he could not put his signature to the document.

 

And keep them as they are now? The EU are insisting they can set higher standards if they wish in the future and we must increase ours to match them with no choice, We would be bound by EU rules on state aid, subsidies, environment, food standards, Farming quotas and support and a whole host of other things the EU are insisting they must control from now on with the British people and parliament having no say and despite them not applying this to any other country they have agreed trade deals with, It is an attempt to keep one foot of the UK in the EU.

 

It seem the single biggest issue is the border between the Republic of Ireland and the 6 counties in the north. We shall refer to these as "The Occupied Territories".

It is really starting to grate. Why, why, why is no one facing up to the elephant in the room?

There is a simple solution to the 'border in the Irish Sea' question.

Time to hand back the 6 counties, Aontroim, Ard Mhach, An Dun, Fhear Manach, Doire and Tir Eoghain, "The occupied Territories" and reunite Ireland.

Once this is done England (because let's be frank it is England that is negotiating this, Scotland and "The Occupied Territories" are being dragged along without consent) can do as they please without worrying about integrity across a group of individual countries that England should have no say or control over.

Unite Ireland Now!

 

The issue with the trade agreement has little to do with standards on food or animal welfare or environmental standards as it is accepted if we want to trade in there market we will have to abide by the standards they set.

The disagreement is over state aid to companies etc, They want us to accept the EU rules on state aid which we refuse to do, The EU is worried we will subsidise our industries to compete both with them and other countries,
You can forget all this about standards it is not the real issue we can not agree on, The UK as a free country quite rightly is insisting on the right to decide these itself on state aid and not the EU

 

The EU wants to have its cake and also eat it, Like the US it uses subsidies quite widely especially in farming and food products, It also offers substantial benefits to the likes of Suzuki, Kia and Hyundai to build car plants in the EU, We use subsidies far less than them but to compete in the future we will have to use subsidies the same as they do, They see this as a threat to both farming and industries, If the UK used a combination of subsidies and low corporation tax we would be a very attractive place to relocate to.