Monday 30 April 2018

JAPAN TIMES Brexit Headlines: 1 Apr - 30 Apr 2018

The Japan Times
Brexit Headlines

BUSINESS   APR 16, 2018

Britain is hoping this week's Commonwealth summit will lead to increased trade with its 
historic network as it prepares to quit the European Union under Brexit. The U.K. has 
seized on analysis showing the advantages of trade between Commonwealth countries 
due to its common language ...


Star Trek's Patrick Stewart has his moment in Brexit debate

BUSINESSAPR 16, 2018

Actor Patrick Stewart drew on his two best-known characters as he helped launch a campaign to give voters the final say on any deal Britain negotiates to leave the European Union. Stewart told the BBC he is supporting the People's Vote because the terms and ...
Britons rushed for EU passports in Brexit vote year

WORLDAPR 9, 2018

The number of Britons becoming citizens of another EU country more than doubled in 2016, data showed, and more than quadrupled in Germany in a development Berlin put down to Brexit. In the year Britons voted to quit the European Union, 6,555 of them acquired ...

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EU's Juncker celebrates Marxist totalitarianism

The ideology Marx gave rise to killed tens of millions of innocents. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, illustrates his own moral blindness and the bankruptcy of the EU itself as he celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. Thank goodness Britain will soon be rid of this awful institution


Skulls
No cause for celebration
28afeec47808a46741242eeecfe39bbc94ff3741
Daniel J. Mitchell
On 30 April 2018 09:13
The evil ideology known as communism left a track record of unimaginable horror. Experts estimate that 100 million people were killed
Some were murdered. Other starved to death because of the pervasive economic failure of communism.
Yet there are dupes and apologists who overlook all this death and misery.
One of them is Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission. A few days from now, this über-bureaucrat will help celebrate the 200th birthday of Karl Marx.
"The European Commission President will travel to Trier, Germany, where he will give a speech to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth. …The Commission President will give a speech at the opening ceremony of the Karl Marx exhibition in the city. …The chief eurocrat’s trip has received critics, who have suggested the 63-year-old forgetting how Marx’s “warped ideology” led to millions of deaths across the world. Ukip MEP and the party’s former leader Paul Nuttall said: “It is appalling that Jean-Claude Juncker feels it necessary to commemorate a man whose ideology – Marxism/Communism – led to more than 100 million deaths.
"…Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski…, who as a seven-year-old boy fled to Britain with his family from the Communist regime in Poland, said Mr Juncker should reject any invitations to commemorate the event. He said: “I think it’s in very poor taste we have to remember that Marxism was all about ripping power and individual means away from people and giving to State. “Marxism led to the killing of millions around the world as it allowed a small band of fanatics to suppress the people we must learn the lessons from this and share with our children.”'
How disgusting. And let’s not forget that communism is still claiming victims in places such as Cuba and North Korea.
Here’s the part of the story that caused my jaw to drop.
"A commission spokeswoman defending Mr Juncker’s visit… She said: …“I think that nobody can deny that Karl Marx is a figure who shaped history in one way or the other."
In that case, why not celebrate Hitler’s birthday as well?
Writing for the Atlas Society, Alan Charles Kors expresses dismay that communism does not receive the same treatment as its sister ideology of National Socialism.
"No cause, ever, in the history of all mankind, has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than socialism with power. It surpassed, exponentially, all other systems of production in turning out the dead. The bodies are all around us. And here is the problem: No one talks about them. No one honors them. No one does penance for them. No one has committed suicide for having been an apologist for those who did this to them. 
"…The West accepts an epochal, monstrous, unforgivable double standard. We rehearse the crimes of Nazism almost daily, we teach them to our children as ultimate historical and moral lessons, and we bear witness to every victim. We are, with so few exceptions, almost silent on the crimes of Communism. So the bodies lie among us, unnoticed, everywhere. We insisted upon “de-Nazification,” and we excoriate those who tempered it in the name of new or emerging political realities. There never has been and never will be a similar “de-Communization,” although the slaughter of innocents was exponentially greater, and although those who signed the orders and ran the camps remain. In the case of Nazism, we hunt down ninety-year-old men because “the bones cry out” for justice. In the case of Communism, we insisted on “no witch hunts”
"… The Communist holocaust should have brought forth a flowering of Western art, and witness, and sympathy. It should have called forth an overflowing ocean of tears. Instead, it has called forth a glacier of indifference. Kids who in the 1960s had portraits of Mao and Che on their college walls —the moral equivalent of having hung portraits of Hitler, Goebbels, or Horst Wessel in one’s dorm—now teach our children about the moral superiority of their political generation. Every historical textbook lingers on the crimes of Nazism, seeks their root causes, and announces a lesson that should be learned. Everyone knows the number “six million.” By contrast, it is always “the mistakes” of Communism or of Stalinism (repeated, by mistake, again, and again, and again). Ask college freshmen how many died under Stalin’s regime, and they will answer, even now, “Thousands? Tens of thousands?”'
Of course, some of these kids are probably wearing t-shirts celebrating Che Guevara, so it goes without saying that they are ignorant.
Or, if they actually know Che’s track record, the kids are immoral punks.
In any event, Jean-Claude Juncker should know better. Sounds like he wants his name to be added to the biggest-clown-in-Brussels contest.
P.S. I’m embarrassed to admit that some economists were apologists for communism.
P.P.S. There’s a very small silver lining to the dark cloud of communism. You can click here, here, here, and here to enjoy some clever anti-communism humor.
Daniel J. Mitchell, a long standing contributor to The Commentator, is a former Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, the free-market, Washington D.C. think tank. His articles are cross-posted on his blog by agreement

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/6792/eu_s_juncker_celebrates_marxist_totalitarianism
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Thursday 26 April 2018

THE CUSTOMS UNION CON

This isn’t about the economy or Northern Ireland – it’s about weakening Brexit.
Today the House of Commons will debate whether membership of the EU Customs Union, or a customs union with the EU (aka the EU Customs Union), should be an objective in the Brexit negotiations. Well, not all of the Commons. The backbench motion, drafted by Tory Europhile Nicky Morgan and Labour’s Yvette Cooper, isn’t binding, and the Tory Party has arranged for MPs to be out campaigning ahead of the local elections. The intention is to signal how unfazed the government is by this fresh attack on its stated Brexit position, of leaving both the Single Market and the Customs Union.
TOM SLATER
DEPUTY EDITOR
26 APRIL 2018
The Customs Union con

But it is a sign of bigger battles to come. This week the unelected House of Lords voted through an amendment to the Brexit Bill requiring the government to report on the possibility of negotiating a customs union with the EU. May insists this changes nothing. And it doesn’t on its own. But the Lords’ intervention, along with the four other defeats it inflicted on the government’s Brexit legislation this week, was designed to put the wind at pro-EU MPs’ backs. With the Brexit Bill returning to the Commons next month, Remainers are emboldened.
Meanwhile, May’s resolve is as weak as ever. The Sunday Times reports that officials have been wargaming scenarios if May caved in on customs. They reportedly said they wouldn’t be ‘crying into their beer’ if it happened, and believe that while Brexit-backing ministers Boris Johnson and Liam Fox would resign, the likes of Michael Gove and David Davis would not. And it’s not as if the government hasn’t given in on Brexit already. At present, we’re signed up in principle to significant alignment with the EU post-Brexit, and a backstop that could see either Northern Ireland or the entire UK remaining in a common regulatory area with the EU if nothing is agreed on the Irish border.
So much for taking back control. Indeed, that’s what the machinations over the Customs Union are really about: thwarting the expressed will of 17.4million people to reclaim their democracy from technocrats who think they know better. Cooper and Morgan make note of the amount of trade we do with the EU, the importance of it to our economy, and the fact it ensures an invisible border between the north and south of Ireland. With the Commons having, for now, relented on Single Market membership, membership of a/the Customs Union is being presented as a sensible compromise that Remainer MPs can get on board with.
But that won’t be the end of it. After all, in the now-retracted words of Labour shadow trade secretary Barry Gardiner, Customs Union membership is ‘deeply unattractive’ for a country outside the EU. It would mean even less control over trade than we have now (and we already have precious little). We would be unable to sign our own trade deals and we would have zero say over the EU agreements we would be subject to. We would be obliged to open ourselves up to goods from nations the EU cuts deals with, but without any reciprocity. Turkey is the only non-member state in a customs arrangement with the EU: it has to import Mexican cars tariff-free, while Mexico slaps 20 per cent on its clothing.
There’s a reason the Norway deal, favoured among Soft Brexiteers, is in the Single Market but not the Customs Union. And MPs know this. They know that the ‘compromise’ that they are pushing is good only for the EU, desperate as it is to limit the political and economic damage of Brexit. For us, it would be the worst of all possible worlds for trade and sovereignty, which is why London is the only region in the UK that supports it. Meanwhile, the crocodile tears over Northern Ireland just don’t wash. The idea that a camera or a border post will instantly bring back the Troubles requires pretending the island of Ireland has remained frozen in aspic for 25 years.
This isn’t about trade or the economy or peace on Belfast’s streets. It’s about weakening Brexit, if not bouncing us back into the EU entirely. The Customs Union proposal is purposefully abysmal, because, if agreed, it would reopen the case for full membership. The day after May’s capitulation, the line from Remainers would be: ‘Okay, we’re in the Customs Union – but why be a rule-taker, when we could be a rule-maker?!’ How a nation trades with other nations is a fundamental sovereign matter, and the No1 issue for Brexit voters was sovereignty. Caving in on the Customs Union would be a bad enough blow to the Brexit spirit. But this barely veiled scheme is even more treacherous.
We must call it out for the con that it is.
Tom Slater is deputy editor at spiked. Follow him on Twitter: @Tom_Slater_
Picture by: Getty

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-customs-union-con/


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The EU “customs partnership” is one of the most half-baked ideas in history

Over the past week, the Prime Minister has confirmed that the UK will definitely leave the EU customs union, while a Downing Street spokesperson has reiterated that this is indeed government policy.
Thursday 26 April 2018 4:02am
Graeme Leach is chief executive and chief economist of Macronomics
A Preview of Her Majesty's Cutter Protector Ahead Of It's Unveiling
UK officials would have to police both regimes (Source: Getty)
This naturally leads to the question of what leaving the customs union will mean in practice.
Last August, the government set out two options for the UK outside of the customs union. Neither received intense scrutiny at the time, but thankfully that has now changed.
The first option was a highly streamlined arrangement based around technology, cooperation, and indeed reality (the fact that almost 98 per cent of container traffic is not physically inspected and is pre-cleared): it entailed removing any need for a hard border with the EU.
The second option was the proposed “customs partnership” with the EU, and it is this arrangement which is now under the spotlight, up for discussion at this week’s meeting of the cabinet’s Brexit sub-committee.
However, any discussion is a waste of time. It is one of the most half-baked ideas in economic history. It should never have seen the light of day. It should have been strangled at birth.
The idea behind the customs partnership is that British exports to the EU would be tariff-free, and that the UK would not be part of the EU’s Common External Tariff (CET). Being outside the customs union would then permit the UK to negotiate and sign trade agreements with other countries across the globe.
So far so good, you might say, but dig deeper, and the partnership proposal justifies Jacob Rees-Mogg’s description of it as “completely cretinous”. The proposal bears all the hallmarks of an EU-leaning Whitehall bureaucracy intent on trying to hoodwink ministers and the general public.
Essentially, the UK would mirror the EU’s requirements for imports from the rest of the world when their final destination was the EU.
Britain would be a border agent for the EU, collecting the CET on EU-destined goods at a UK border entry point, but operating its own post-Brexit WTO tariff schedule for goods destined for here. These goods would ultimately pay a UK tariff, while those destined onwards for the EU would pay the EU’s CET at the UK border.
You only need to think about this for a moment to realise that it is completely impractical. There would need to be a tracking mechanism to check that those goods with the UK as the stated destination weren’t being forwarded on to the EU without paying the CET. As yet, no such tracking technology exists. It is yet to be designed, built, and tested.
And the problems get worse.
EU customs procedures require all countries to operate all tariff and non-tariff procedures in the same way. Under the partnership proposal, the UK would not only be collecting the EU’s CET and enforcing its tariff rate quotas, alongside its own tariff schedule. It would also have to enforce the EU’s non-tariff rules as well.
UK officials would have to police both regimes. This is completely bonkers.
One suggested way around some of these problems is that UK-destined goods could also pay the CET on arrival, with exporters then claiming back the difference between the higher EU and lower UK tariffs.
But this is hardly evidence of the UK taking back control. Imagine Liam Fox telling an American or Australian trade negotiator that they would have to pay the CET and then claim back a refund.
The fact that Whitehall came up with such a plan is deeply disturbing and makes one fear what the officials might do next.
City A.M.'s opinion pages are a place for thought-provoking views and debate. These views are not necessarily shared by City A.M.
http://www.cityam.com/284713/eu-customs-partnership-one-most-half-baked-ideas-economic
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May Had Secret Brexit Showdown With Tories Who Want Clean Break

  • U.K. leader was asked to drop ‘magic’ customs partnership plan
  • Crunch meeting on customs options will take place next week

By 
Tim Ross
 Updated on 



Brexit-backing Conservatives held private talks with Theresa May to demand that the U.K. prime minister sticks to her plan for a clean break with the European Union.
At the meeting, which took place in the prime minister’s office on Tuesday, May reassured euroskeptics she will deliver the kind of Brexit they want, according to two people familiar with the conversation. The gathering was convened amid reports that May might be getting ready to buckle on her red line to quit the customs union.
The assurances, according to the people speaking on condition of anonymity, seem to have satisfied Tories who have the power to potentially trigger a leadership challenge and were concerned she was softening her Brexit position.
May has no majority in the House of Commons and faces some tough parliamentary arithmetic to stick to her plan to pull out of the customs union: both the main opposition Labour Party and some pro-EU Tories support close ties to the bloc. On Wednesday, she suffered her sixth defeat on her flagship Brexit legislation in a sign that lawmakers are increasingly shaping her vision.
The customs union issue could come to a head in a crunch vote next month, with potential Tory rebels threatening to defeat May and force her to accept staying in the EU’s trade regime after all.
But May told the delegation of euroskeptics that she would take Britain out of the single market and the arrangement that sets a common tariff on imported goods. This will allow the U.K. to control immigration and strike free trade deals on its own terms.
May is now facing pressure to go a step further and ditch what is said to be her favored option for a new customs and tariff regime. The so-called “customs partnership” plan would involve the U.K. collecting tariffs on the EU’s behalf and then refunding companies whose goods are destined for end-users who are not based in countries operating the bloc’s tariffs.
The plan is far too complicated and won’t work, according to Tory critics, who are said to include Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit Secretary David Davis, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Trade Secretary Liam Fox. Brexit supporters fear it will tie the U.K. too closely to the EU’s tariff regime. It’s also been rejected by the EU.
May’s Brexit “war cabinet” of senior ministers met on Wednesday but did not discuss customs plans in detail, despite expectations that the argument would be aired. Instead, the question of customs arrangements will be on the agenda for next Wednesday’s meeting of May’s most senior Brexit team, people familiar with the matter said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-25/u-k-s-may-had-private-showdown-with-brexit-backing-tories
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U.K. Parliament, Not Theresa May, Emerges as Boss of Brexit

  • David Davis says final Brexit deal can be amended by lawmakers
  • U.K. government moved on from ‘take it or leave it’ approach

By 
Tim Ross
 Updated on 

When it comes to Brexit, Parliament -- not Theresa May’s government -- is the ultimate boss. And in the end, lawmakers could decide to keep the U.K. in the European customs union against the prime minister’s will.
That was the logic of David Davis, the U.K.’s chief Brexit negotiator, in evidence to a parliamentary committee in London on Wednesday. And it has major implications for the divorce deal with the EU that might follow.
Whether the U.K. stays in the customs union goes to the heart of what type of Brexit the country will get. May and her Brexit-supporting Conservative colleagues want to leave the EU’s tariff regime to allow the U.K. to break free of the bloc’s trade policy and strike new deals with countries including the U.S.
But pro-Europeans and business groups want to keep the U.K. in the customs union to ease the flow of goods across the border. They say leaving it would create major problems for trade and hurt the British economy.
The issue could come to a head next month, when the House of Commons is expected to vote on whether to stay in the bloc’s tariff regime. Rebels in May’s Conservative Party are preparing to vote against her plan to leave it.
Davis said he wouldn’t speculate on “hypotheticals,” including what will happen if Parliament defeats the government. In any case, Davis said he expected the government’s policy to be approved by legislators.

‘Respect’

That wasn’t enough for Parliament’s Brexit committee chairman Hilary Benn. “But if it isn’t, you’re going to have to respect it, aren’t you?” he asked Davis of a potential parliamentary defeat.
“The government always respects Parliament, but I expect the government’s policy to be upheld,” Davis replied.
In politics, expectations matter but they are not the same as guarantees.
Davis was later asked if there’s a danger that the U.K. would have to stay in the EU’s customs union beyond the 21-month transition period if new border arrangements were not ready in time.
Davis said there was a “risk” that French or Dutch border checks would make life difficult if no new system for smooth operations is ready to introduce -- but he insisted he is talking to EU governments about this issue.
“I do not expect the solution to that to be extension of membership of the customs union,” he said. “I would view that on my part as a failure.”
Davis’s comments are the latest in a series of hints that there’s some flexibility and movement in the government’s position on the customs union. Connect some of these dots and a picture begins to emerge that a blurring of this red line is perhaps possible.

1. Free-trade deals may not be all they’re cracked up to be

Some of May’s officials think that quitting the customs union in order to win the power to strike free trade agreements with countries such as the U.S. or Australia is not as desirable as passionate Brexit supporters believe, Bloomberg reported on April 12. Such trade deals with third countries can take a long time to negotiate and end up mired in litigation, while measures short of formal FTAs can still deliver significant benefits, one person said.

2. The government has suffered a series of defeats

The House of Lords has voted in favor of staying in the customs union and while the vote isn’t binding it will probably embolden Tory rebels in the House of Commons to vote the same way. A vote in the chamber could come as soon as next month when an amendment on the Trade Bill is debated and enough Tories have signed up to it to defeat May. Rebels forced May’s hand at the end of last year by outvoting her on Brexit and have little to lose by doing so again. Labour also wants to stay in the customs union so Brexit-watchers estimate there is probably a majority for it overall in Parliament.

3. Are the Big Brexit guns willing to resign over it?

With murmurings of a change of mood -- Sunday Times wrote on April 22 of a possible “surrender over customs union” and how May’s aides had done a war-game exercise to see if any Brexit-backing top ministers would resign in protest over the issue.
When asked directly about this at the Group of Seven, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson declined to stake his political future on it. Liam Fox, who was put in charge of international trade, built a whole case this week on how the customs union only deals with goods, while the U.K. economy is overwhelmingly reliant on services. It was an interesting distinction from a euroskeptic who back in February said a reversal on customs union would be a “complete sell-out.”


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-25/u-k-s-may-had-private-showdown-with-brexit-backing-tories
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