Theresa May is taking Britain out of the EU’s customs union – but what comes next?

What all the major UK players want to get out of Brexit 

• Joe Watts Political Editor 
• @JoeWatts_ 
• Monday 5 February 2018 22:09

Debate is still raging about what type of Brexit people want ( Getty )

Whether Britain should stay in the EU’s customs union, has become the issue now levering Britain’s Brexit divisions open.

Staying in is the only thing that guarantees the tariff-free trade the UK currently enjoys, but both the Conservatives and Labour have ruled that out.

Leaving it, on the other hand, would guarantee the ability to agree new free-trade agreements with other nations.

But what arrangements with the EU would come instead of it, is not something any party wants to spell out.

In fact leaders in both main parties seem happy with a degree of ambiguity, vaguely talking about “a” – not “the” – customs union, “a partnership” or simply “arrangements”.

For its part, the EU has made clear anything other full involvement in “the” customs union means increased barriers to trade.

Here The Independent takes the temperature from key figures in the debate…

Prime Minster Theresa May

Her spokesman said: “The Government’s position was set out in a future partnership paper on the customs union.

“We will be leaving the EU and the customs union and it is not the Government’s policy to be members of ‘the’ customs union or ‘a’ customs union.

“That paper in August set out two possible options and they are a highly streamlined customs arrangement and a new customs partnership with the EU.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP 

“In leaving the European Union we must free ourselves from the Common External Tariff which protects inefficient Continental producers on the backs of the poorest UK consumers.” 

Dominic Grieve, Conservative MP

“Tariff-free trade with our European Union partners and its maintenance is much more important than potential tariff-free arrangements with non EU countries.

“It will always, in my view, deliver a better economic boost to this country.

“The Government will look to maintain tariff-free access and do its own thing elsewhere. That’s a delicious ideal, but it may not be feasible.”    

Matthew Elliott, former Chief Executive of Vote Leave 

“When 17.4 million people voted Leave in 2016, they were voting to Leave the EU's custom's union, because a big part of Vote Leave's pitch was about taking back control of trade policy.

“The UK will not be able to negotiate trade deals if it remains in 'the' customs union, or even if it forms 'a' customs union with the EU.   

“As a service orientated economy, the EU's tariff schedule does not suit the UK economy, because EU trade policy is focused on countries more reliant on agriculture and manufacturing. This means that UK consumers lose out by effectively paying higher tariffs (taxes) on the goods they buy. 

“The UK needs to negotiate a fully comprehensive, highly liberalising trade deal with the EU, starting from a point of complete alignment but moving in a direction of mutual recognition of regulatory structures.

“Almost 98 per cent of goods entering the EU from the rest of the world are not inspected at the border, so a UK-EU trade deal is compatible with maintaining a frictionless border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.”

Chuka Umunna, Labour MP

“I have consistently called for the Labour frontbench to adopt a clearer position against this extremism and the unfolding Tory Brexit catastrophe by, at the very least, committing to ensure the UK continues to participate in the EU single market – which protects workers, consumers and the environment – and the customs union if Brexit happens. 

“The overwhelming majority of our membership – who voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 and 2016 Labour leadership elections – also support staying in both entities. Just last week, the former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis – who famously fell out with the EU – came to Parliament at my invitation to make the Marxist case for the Labour Party to adopt a ‘Norway-plus’ model as policy (i.e. staying in the single market).

“In truth, one of the biggest obstacles to the leadership adopting a less ambiguous position which would put clear red water between us and the Tories on Brexit is that so many people believe I – and other Labour MPs – make our Brexit arguments out of a desire to oppose the Labour leader.”

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn

A spokesman said: “We want a final deal that retains the benefits of the Customs Union. Options for achieving the benefits of the Customs Union should not be swept off the table.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-theresa-may-customs-union-uk-britain-dominic-grieve-jacob-reesmogg-a8196071.html

Demand for City offices to remain strong after record-breaking 2017

This year is set to be another stellar period for investment in the City of London, after 2017 set a new record.

Monday 5 February 2018 6:19pm

Commercial investment in the City hit a new high in 2017 (Source: Getty)

Total annual commercial property investment volumes in the City reached £12.6bn, beating the 10-year average by 57 per cent according to real estate adviser Savills.

Volumes during the first three quarters of 2017 alone reached £8.5bn, with the rise in turnover driven by an increased demand for "trophy assets".

Overseas buyers accounted for much of the activity, with investors of more than 28 nationalities acquiring real estate in London.

Read more: UK commercial property volumes to exceed £50bn in 2018

More than half of total City turnover is now accounted for by Asian buyers, compared to the 14 per cent attributable to European buyers and 12 per cent to UK.

Richard Bullock, director of the central London investment team at Savills, said that demand for the "safe haven" of Lonon property was likely to continue this year.

“2018 has continued to see significant interest from international investors, many of whom are looking to diversify capital and preserve wealth outside their domestic markets," he said.

"As such they’re targeting the relative safe haven of the UK, especially London; the most liquid real estate market in the world. Looking ahead, we anticipate similar levels of demand this year as London remains good value compared to other major cities in Europe and Asia-Pac which should lead to strong pricing being achieved for the very best buildings”.

Read more: A record level of investment in London offices came from abroad last year

http://www.cityam.com/280064/demand-city-offices-remain-strong-after-record-breaking

Fees for non-EU nationals to use the NHS are set to be DOUBLED to raise an extra £220m for the health service

• Charges for non-EU migrants to use the NHS are set to be doubled this year
• The fees are to rise to £400 to ensure that migrants make a 'fair contribution'
• Increase is lower than had been proposed by the Tories before the election 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5352359/NHS-fees-non-EU-nationals-set-DOUBLED.html

By JAMES TAPSFIELD, POLITICAL EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 08:17 BST, 5 February 2018 | UPDATED: 13:32 BST, 5 February 2018

Fees for non-EU migrants to use the NHS are set to double, the government has announced.

Ministers said the move - expected to rake in an extra £220million a year for the health service - would ensure new arrivals made a 'fair contribution'.

The £400 per year charge will apply to all migrants from outside the EU who want to stay in Britain for six months or more.

Students and those on special 'mobility' schemes for 18-30 year olds will get a discounted rate of £300, up from £150.

+3

The £400 per year charge will apply to all migrants from outside the EU who want to stay in Britain for six months or more (file picture)

But the increase falls short of the Tory manifesto pledge to increase the annual fee to £600.

The surcharge was originally brought in by the Government in 2015 in a clampdown on so-called 'health tourism'.

The Department of Health estimates that the NHS spends £470 on average per person per year on treating surcharge payers.

The surcharge is levied when an application is made to come to Britain, and makes an individual exempt from NHS charges for overseas visitors. 

It is payable every year, on top of regular taxes for workers, until migrants either return home or are granted indefinite leave to remain. 

The £220million raised from the increased charges, due to be introduced later this year, will go straight back to the NHS.

Plans for the rise seem to have been watered down along with a host of other pledges from the botched Tory election campaign.

+3

The £220million raised from the increased charges, due to be introduced later this year, will go straight back to the NHS (file picture)

Health Minister Lord O'Shaughnessy said: 'Our NHS is always there when you need it, paid for by British taxpayers.

'We welcome long-term migrants using the NHS, but it is only right that they make a fair contribution to its long-term sustainability.

'By increasing the surcharge so that it better reflects the actual costs of using health services, this Government is providing an extra £220 million a year to support the NHS.'

Nigerian woman, 43, racks up £500,000 NHS bill after giving birth to IVF quadruplets in London hospital after going into labour on flight to Heathrow 

One of the largest hospitals in the country is chasing a bill of more than £500,000 from a Nigerian woman who gave birth to quadruplets.

The 43-year-old, named only as Priscilla, went into labour three months early shortly after landing at Heathrow airport in November.

She had intended to give birth to the babies in Chicago, in the US, where she has family – but was turned away by border officials upon arrival.

They claimed that although she had a visa, she did not have required documents from a hospital stating that she had the money to pay for the birth.

+3

Health tourist? A 43 year-old Lagos native, known as Priscilla, was the subject of a BBC2 documentary Hospital after racking-up a £500,000 maternity bill

Priscilla, a healthcare worker, said she was returning to Nigeria via London when she started having contractions.

She was taken to the Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in west London, part of Imperial College Hospital, where she delivered the four babies.

One sadly died shortly after birth while another, a girl named Deborah, passed away on Saturday. The other two, Elijah and Esther, are still being treated on the hospital’s neonatal intensive care ward.

Staff estimate that the total bill for the highly complex birth and the care of the babies is already more than £500,000.

The cost of treating one baby in neonatal intensive care is £20,000 a week.

Priscilla is currently staying at a hostel run by a charity and is unable to afford the bill.

Her husband is in Nigeria, and cannot come to Britain to help take care of her as he does not have enough money for a visa or the flight.

Priscilla underwent IVF treatment, which has a high risk of multiple births, as she was struggling to conceive naturally due to her age. 

She was told by her doctor to fly to the US to have her babies, as Nigerian hospitals do not have the ‘facilities to cater for the children’.

Her case is revealed tonight in the BBC 2 documentary Hospital, which exposes the pressures of health tourism on the trust. 

When first warned of the high treatment costs by overseas visitor manager Terry Facey, she says: ‘I didn’t plan to come here.

‘It’s only money. Money can’t buy life. The last bill I had was £331,000 but – even if I worked every day – I would never earn that much money. My kids are priceless.’

Mr Facey, who has worked at the trust for 12 years trying to collect bills for overseas patients, says: ‘Those invoices are going to be huge ... 20 grand a week for each baby [in intensive care].  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5352359/NHS-fees-non-EU-nationals-set-DOUBLED.html

Ending free movement is a pivotal part of Brexit, says STEPHEN POLLARD

REMEMBER the phrase Take Back Control? It was at the heart of the referendum debate and at the core of the Leave victory. It encompassed many issues but one of the most fundamental was taking back control over migration.

By STEPHEN POLLARD

PUBLISHED: 08:54, Fri, Feb 2, 2018 | UPDATED: 09:21, Fri, Feb 2, 2018

One of the key purposes of Brexit was to make sure that we are once again able to decide how many and which people we allow into the country. 

As an EU member we have been obliged to allow free movement from the other 27 member states – in other words, anyone from any EU member state who wants to come here to work is allowed to do so.

In the year after the EU referendum in June 2016, it has been calculated that 230,000 citizens from other EU countries took advantage of that and moved to the UK. 

Free movement is one of the so-called pillars of the EU and any move to change it will always be rejected. 

David Cameron made a paltry attempt when he began his ill-fated renegotiation of our membership but quickly got nowhere. 

That’s why the only way to stop free movement is to leave the EU – which is what we are about to do.  

RELATED ARTICLES

• 
  Britain will say NO to EU free movement demands, says Theresa May
• 
  EU is showing ‘GOODWILL by granting UK ‘vassal state’ transition deal

As part of that Brexit process there is to be a transition period, almost certainly lasting two years. EU citizens will still be able to live and work here during the transition period. 

But it’s expected that there would be two crucial differences from free movement: they would have to register with the Home Office and would no longer automatically qualify to live in the UK permanently. 

One of the issues decided in December, when we reached agreement with the other 27 EU members over the so-called phase one of Brexit negotiations, was how this transition period would affect the idea of free movement. 

The deal was clear. 

Free movement – specifically the right of any EU citizen to move to the UK and stay here to work – would end on the day after our withdrawal in March 2019.  

GETTY

One of Brexit's purposes was to make sure we are able to decide how many people can enter the UK

Don’t take my word for it. 

To quote Paragraph 8 of the agreement: “The specified date [for the end of free movement] should be the time of the UK’s withdrawal.” 

That’s clear and unambiguous. 

Free movement ends at the end of next March. 

But – oh, what a surprise! 

No sooner had we signed the deal in December than a series of EU leaders – including that most irritating usual suspect, federalist MEP Guy Verhofstadt – started to complain that it meant that EU workers who arrived in the transition period after March 2019 would lose any right to reside here. 

You might well be thinking, “Well, yes, that’s the entire point”. 

One of the central purposes of our withdrawal from the EU is to remove the right of the rest of the EU to come here simply because they want to. 

It was only a few weeks ago, on December 8, that the EU signed up to a deal with the UK agreeing to precisely that withdrawal of the rights of residency that come with free movement. 

Yet now some of them want to unravel the deal, saying that the rules of free movement should continue during the transition period. 

With negotiations beginning over the details of the transition, the likes of Mr Verhofstadt are insisting: “Citizens’ rights during the transition are not negotiable. 

We will not accept that there are two sets of rights for EU citizens.”  

And yesterday EU officials were reported as saying that the demand that the cut-off date for residency rights be moved back to the end of the transition period was “non-negotiable” and it was “inconceivable” that the UK could avoid free movement during the transition. 

This is simply barking. 

And it shows how, even now, they still don’t get what Brexit really means. 

It is, of course, entirely right that the 3.2 million EU citizens who have moved here so far are offered a guarantee by the British Government that they can stay. 

They moved here legally and have done nothing wrong.

But now that we are leaving the EU, everyone knows we are leaving, and the context has changed completely.  

GETTY

The 3.2 million EU citizens who have moved here so far are offered a guarantee that they can stay

There is nothing, legally, that we can do about those EU citizens who move here until we leave. 

But there is every legal – and moral – reason to say that if you come here during the transition, then you are on notice that you no longer have the right to stay here. 

Not least because the other 27 EU leaders have already signed an agreement saying just that! 

And Theresa May has given short shrift to these ludicrous demands. 

As she put it this week, speaking to reporters on her trip to China: existing immigrants deserve protection because they have “made a life choice” based on the UK’s EU membership. 

But “for those who come after March 2019, that will be different because they will be coming to a UK they know will be outside the EU”.  

GETTY

Brexit really must mean Brexit

Migration Watch, the think tank that has consistently reported immigration levels more accurately than the Government’s initial figures, said that extending free movement into the transition period could mean up to a million extra EU migrants being given the right to live in Britain. 

So much for taking back control. 

Mrs May has rightly made clear that she is not going to budge on this. 

Ending free movement is a pivotal part of Brexit. 

And if democracy and the votes of 17,410,742 British citizens are to mean anything, then Brexit really must mean Brexit. 

RELATED ARTICLES

• EU countries could lose BILLIONS from British tourism
• Jacob Rees-Mogg accuses Government of ‘rolling over’ for EU
• UK must end free movement the second we quit hated EU

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/913531/brexit-free-movement-end-theresa-may-eu-talks-Guy-Verhofstadt-uk-border-control

MUST READ - US View: UK has a stronger Brexit hand than it thinks

he EU is terrified that an independent UK will become more market-friendly and thus put competitive pressure on its member states. It is also horrified at losing EU contributions. Theresa May needs to understand she has the upper hand, and stop behaving like a weakling against Eurocrats who genuinely have a lot to fear

Britain should get tough with EU

Daniel J. Mitchell

On 1 February 2018 14:33

If I was a citizen of the United Kingdom, I would have voted to leave the European Union for the simple reason that even a rickety lifeboat is better than a slowly sinking ship.

More specifically, demographic changes and statist policies are a crippling combination for continental Europe, almost surely guaranteeing a grim future, and British voters wisely decided to escape. Indeed, I listed Brexit as one of the best things that happened in 2016.

This doesn’t mean the U.K. has ideal policies, but Brexit was a good idea precisely because politicians in London will now have more leeway and incentive to liberalize their economy.

Though I wonder whether Prime Minister May and the bumbling Tories will take advantage of the situation.

The Financial Times has a report that captures the real issue driving Brexit discussions. Simply stated, the European Union is scared that an independent U.K. will become more market-friendly and thus put competitive pressure on E.U. welfare states.

"The EU is threatening sanctions to stop Britain undercutting the continent’s economy after Brexit…the bloc wants unprecedented safeguards after the UK leaves to preserve a “level playing field” and counter the “clear risks” of Britain slashing taxes or relaxing regulation. Brussels…wants…to enforce restrictions on taxation…and employment rights.

"…the EU negotiators highlight the risk of Britain ‘undermining Europe as an area of high social protection’…the UK is “likely to use tax to gain competitiveness” and note it is already a low-tax economy with a “large number of offshore entities”. …On employment and environmental standards, the EU negotiators highlight the risk of Britain “undermining Europe as an area of high social protection”.'

In case you don’t have a statism-to-English dictionary handy, you need to realize that “level playing field” means harmonizing taxes and regulations at very high level.

Moreover, “employment rights” means regulations that discourage hiring by making it very difficult for companies to get rid of workers.

And “high social protection” basically means a pervasive and suffocating welfare state.

To plagiarize from the story’s headline, these are all policies that belong in a bonfire.

And the prospect of that happening explains why the politicians and bureaucrats in continental Europe are very worried.

"…senior EU diplomats, however, worry that the political expectations go beyond what it is possible to enforce or agree. “This is our big weakness,” said one. Theresa May, the British prime minister, last year warned the EU against a “punitive” Brexit deal, saying Britain would fight back by setting “the competitive tax rates and the policies that would attract the world’s best companies and biggest investors”.'

Sadly, Theresa May doesn’t seem very serious about taking advantage of Brexit. Instead, she’s negotiating like she has the weak hand.

Instead, she has the ultimate trump card of a “hard Brexit.” Here are four reasons why she’s in a very strong position.

First, the U.K. has a more vibrant economy. In the latest estimates from the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World, the United Kingdom is #6.

And how does that compare to the other major economies of Europe? Well, Germany is #23, Spain is #36, France is #52, and Italy is #54.

So it’s easy to understand why the European Union is extremely agitated about the United Kingdom becoming even more market oriented.

Indeed, the only area where the U.K. is weak is “size of government.” So if Brexit led the Tories to lower tax rates and shrink the burden of government spending, it would put enormous pressure on the uncompetitive welfare states on the other side of the English Channel.

Second, the European Union is horrified about the prospect of losing membership funds from the United Kingdom. That’s why there’s been so much talk (the so-called divorce settlement) of ongoing payments from the U.K. to subsidize the army of bureaucrats in Brussels.

A “hard Brexit” worries British multinational companies, but it worries European bureaucrats even more.

Third, the European Union has very few options to punitively respond because existing trade rules (under the World Trade Organization) are the fallback option if there’s no deal. In other words, any protectionist schemes (the “sanctions” discussed in the FT article) from Brussels surely would get rejected.

Fourth, European politicians may hate the idea of an independent, market-oriented United Kingdom, but the business community in the various nations of continental Europe will use its lobbying power to fight against self-destructive protectionist policies and other punitive measures being considered by the spiteful political class.

P.S. Here’s a Brexit version of the Bayeux Tapestry that probably won’t be funny unless one is familiar with the ins and outs of British politics.

P.P.S. Here are some easier-to-understand versions of Brexit humor.

P.P.P.S. And here’s some mockery of senior politicians of the European Commission.

Daniel J. Mitchell, a long standing contributor to The Commentator, is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, the free-market, Washington D.C. think tank. His articles are cross-posted on his blog by agreement

Related

• History will not be kind to the "broken people" of Remain
• The EU’s doomed plot to halt a real Brexit
• No Brexit deal is still better than a bad Brexit deal
• Small business bonanza after Brexit

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/6735/us_view_uk_has_a_stronger_brexit_hand_than_it_thinks