Scrutable

bmforre wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 2:09 pm

veravista wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 1:44 pm Ace post LW.

I agree.

+1 more

Dermot O'Logical wrote: Tue Dec 24, 2019 5:28 pm Feel free to show me the world outside my bubble. Which international media should i read to discover foreigners who think the UK isn't insane and ridiculous?

Right of centre media in the English speaking world are generally supportive. You can find positive coverage in The Australian, for example. Almost everything associated with conservative political opinions will be dismissable based on the owners being known conservatives (shock, horror). That's how bubbles work. They're self-imposed.

The single market is the reason that you have friction free trade within the EU / EEA

Regulatory Alignment is not enough. The reason that you can "do away" with checks is those checks are embedded within each country in the (quite intrusive) market surveillance, enforcement and dispute resolution systems that are an integral part of the EU/EEA

Link
here

Switzerland isn't in the single market. Lots of other countries manage low friction trade without political union. We'll find a way that works well enough.

Switzerland is in the single market. Relevant Swiss law is aligned with EU law via a series of bilateral treaties.

Switzerland isn’t in the EU Customs Union, which is different.

Woodchopper wrote: Thu Dec 26, 2019 4:18 am Switzerland is in the single market. Relevant Swiss law is aligned with EU law via a series of bilateral treaties.

Switzerland isn’t in the EU Customs Union, which is different.

Switzerland isn't in a member of the Single Market. It has a very close FTA with the EU.

We,ve had this rather fruitless discussion before over the definition of the single market

wiki says

The European Single Market, Internal Market or Common Market is a single market which seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and labour – the ‘four freedoms‘ – within the European Union (EU).[3][4][5][6] The market encompasses the EU's 28 member states, and has been extended, with exceptions, to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the Agreement on the European Economic Area and to Switzerland through bilateral treaties.

...From the perspective of the EU, the treaties contain largely the same content as the EEA treaties, making Switzerland a virtual member of the EEA....

PeteB wrote: Thu Dec 26, 2019 10:52 am We,ve had this rather fruitless discussion before over the definition of the single market

wiki says

The European Single Market, Internal Market or Common Market is a single market which seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and labour – the ‘four freedoms‘ – within the European Union (EU).[3][4][5][6] The market encompasses the EU's 28 member states, and has been extended, with exceptions, to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the Agreement on the European Economic Area and to Switzerland through bilateral treaties.

...From the perspective of the EU, the treaties contain largely the same content as the EEA treaties, making Switzerland a virtual member of the EEA....

Key word there is 'virtual'. Switzerland isn't subject to the state aid rules for industries (they were particularly worried about their regional banks), and continues to debate other stuff with the EU. The Citizens Rights Directive hasn't been transposed into Swiss law, for example, whereas it has in the EEA nations.

Switzerland's economy is about a quarter the size of ours.

Re Switzerland:
A large part of road and rail connections between North/West Europe and South/East goes through Switzerland. The Swiss complain of the environmental impact this imposes on their clean and compact country and demand consideration.
The EU see these connections as vital. This puts Switzerland in a strong bargaining position.

Does Brexitania have anything similar that the EU need?

Does Brexitania have anything similar that the EU need?

Possibly the easiest route to Ireland? Not as compelling.

Surely the bigger question is whether a Swiss-style arrangement (Very closely aligned to the single market) is a UK government goal. With a designed-in hard deadline it seems much more likely, if there is a policy goal, that its basically WTO-with-some-mitigations.

Pretending that Switzerland provides any model for the UK is specious.

bmforre wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 8:04 am Re Switzerland:
A large part of road and rail connections between North/West Europe and South/East goes through Switzerland. The Swiss complain of the environmental impact this imposes on their clean and compact country and demand consideration.
The EU see these connections as vital. This puts Switzerland in a strong bargaining position.

Does Brexitania have anything similar that the EU need?

Largest capital markets in europe. Importabt airspace. Economy 4 times the size of Switzerlands. UN Security council membership and more capable military than most of Europe excepy France. Significant export maket for german and italian cars, french and spanish wine etc..

Nice list but there doesn't seem to be anything vital to the EU.

The capital markets that deal with EU countries have largely moved to Paris and Frankfort-a-R. Airspace can be avoided as we do avoiding Russia airspace even though it's the shortest route to SE Asia and Aus. The size of our economy is shrinking and likely to shrink more. The Security Council seat has been under pressure for some time. Many countries don't see why the UK deserves a permanent seat anymore. The EU isn't a military organisation (so far).

EU car and wine producers (and others) will take a hit - but they're not losing half their market like the UK is about to. And I'm sure there's plenty of contingency planning going/gone on.

Lew Dolby wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 11:09 am Nice list but there doesn't seem to be anything vital to the EU.

The capital markets that deal with EU countries have largely moved to Paris and Frankfort-a-R.

This is complete fantasy.

Airspace can be avoided as we do avoiding Russia airspace even though it's the shortest route to SE Asia and Aus.

You could say the same about Switzerland.

The size of our economy is shrinking and likely to shrink more.

Wrong again.

The Security Council seat has been under pressure for some time. Many countries don't see why the UK deserves a permanent seat anymore. The EU isn't a military organisation (so far).

It tried to be in the Balkans. We aren't losing our security council seat.

EU car and wine producers (and others) will take a hit - but they're not losing half their market like the UK is about to. And I'm sure there's plenty of contingency planning going/gone on.

The EU sells more to us than we sell to the EU. If Switzerland can negotiate special arrangements in an FTA, so can we.

Now I'm more confused. I couldn't see what your airspace point was about.

What's Switzerland got to do with British (or Russian) airspace ? Or were you suggesting the UK might lock Eu flights out of UK airspace ?

Sheldrake, we'd all love it if the UK became a "virtual" member of the Single Market through bilateral treaties. We'd continue to trade with the EU on very advantageous terms and we'd have a lot of negotiating power and influence with them.

But can you persuade the ERG and Faragist extremists? They'd see it as a betrayal.

I'm not sure why we're talking about Switzerland, that's 'not what we voted for', as it's what allows the Swiss to participate in the Single Market, and we've said we want something else - though we've not been told what we do want.

It's something Shelly has mentioned before - we'll prevent EU air traffic over the UK as some sort of bargaining chip. Complete fantasy

Lew Dolby wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 11:29 am Now I'm more confused. I couldn't see what your airspace point was about.

What's Switzerland got to do with British (or Russian) airspace ? Or were you suggesting the UK might lock Eu flights out of UK airspace ?

I was responding to a post where somebody thought that the reason Switzerland had single market access without actually being a member or accepting all the rules (and they definitely *don't* accept all the rules that come with EEA membership) was that their special geography was a bargaining chip. I was underscoring the fact that we have all of the supposed bargaining chips Switzerland has, and with an economy 4 times the size, many more.

That said, I actually think it's got less to do with geography and more to do with the fact that their constitution forces them to put things to referenda so that the EU commission regularly gets told to go f.ck itself and think again, in a way that our supine political class had failed to do since Thatcher resigned. We've been living in a country run by people who think negotiation consists of asking the other party what they would like, and then giving it to them (often lubricated by sinecures in the commission or various pro-integration banks like Goldman Sachs). With a bit of luck that era is over

People like Farage and the ERG are the only reason the EU has to negotiate. If it was left up to 'sensible centrists' we'd have adopted the Euro by now.

So you're not suggesting UK airspace is a bargaining chip? Or you are? Difficult to tell with the constant uprooting noise of all these goalposts.

plodder wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 4:37 pm So you're not suggesting UK airspace is a bargaining chip? Or you are? Difficult to tell with the constant uprooting noise of all these goalposts.

Not very much a bargaining chip, but as much a bargaining chip as swiss geography is wrt to European road and rail transport. No goalposts have been moved. You really ought to be digging in on the weird attempt to explain why Switzerland doesn't have to follow all the single market rules that I was replying to.

So which single market rules (rather than EU and EEA rules) do the Swiss not have to follow?

If you read my post above, you'll see

That's great. Now we only need 50 years of bilateral treaties with a antagonistic partner to be completed in 11 months.

Bracing.

sheldrake wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 6:25 pm If you read my post above, you'll see

Which post?