howard mcsweeney1 wrote:I keep reading stuff about a "Norwegian" type of relationship with the EU. Apparently they pay barrow loads of money to get access to EU markets and have no say in the rules and regulations.
The last I heard 70% of their exports were to EU member states and a lot less in return, so bully for them but not for us.
Quite so Howard. Our position on trade and financial services is totally different to that of Norway. Keir Starmer obviously thinks that barrow loads of money as you put it is OK to go on and on whilst being out of the EU, but "in" (by his somewhat addled way of thinking). Of course he is fully entitled to hold that view, but further enlightenment as to how that would benefit the UK would be appreciated.
To have a commitment to adhere to any regime to which one has no representation or recourse "now or in the future" is not something we should be agreeing to at any cost.
An example is in Clause 49 of the Joint Report progress 'Agreement' signed on 8 December 2017
"49. The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South cooperation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border. Any future arrangements must be compatible with these overarching requirements. The United Kingdom's intention is to achieve these objectives through the overall EU-UK relationship. Should is not be possible, the United Kingdom will propose specific solutions to address the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland. In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement."
Notwithstanding the separate argument about "full alignment" I have highlight in the above text some rather interesting drafting that places the onus squarely with the UK, and also commits the UK to rules of the Internal Market and Customs Union which may be introduced [I]"[U]now or in the future"[/U] [/I]. Rules to which we presumably will have no input, influence or counter.
This business of placing the onus fully on the UK (enabling the EU to comfortably sit back and do s*d all) was well set out in a letter to The Times today:
Clause 49 of the Brexit Phase 1 deal outlines the future alignment between Ireland and Northern Ireland. It says: “The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South co-operation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border.” There is nothing in this statement to require Ireland and the EU to play any part in ensuring co-operation. Only the UK must make adjustment.
Of course we have "the caveat that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed"; David Davis saying this is more "a statement of intent than [a] legally enforceable [agreement]", a gentleman's agreement (not the way at all that the Irish see it); and to crown it all Farage and Cable actually agreed with each other on the European Project. Whatever next!!