Lost in the entire debate about when Theresa May should file article 50, and constant bickering about how long Brexit discussions will take, is one simple fact: Brexit is now a religious battle.
The EU insists the UK heed to four fundamental principles.
- Free movement of good
- Free movement for workers
- Right of establishment and freedom to provide services
- Free movement of capital
On the other side of the table, The UK insists it will not abide by rule number 2 and that it is better off outside the arcane tariff procedures and other policies of the EU.
Obvious Bluffs
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny warns Brexit ‘impossible’ within two years. That statement comes from a man who does not want Brexit and whose mission now is to delay Brexit so long it doesn’t happen.
Meanwhile, Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble boasts Britain can’t lower corporation tax because the UK still has EU commitments.
Schäuble dramatically overstates his case to the point of being an obvious bluff.
Who Has the Upper Hand?
Both sides claim to have the upper hand. In the UK, Brexit officials say Cards Stacked in Our Favour, but officials in the EU state a counter-case.
It’s unclear if the EU believes it has a stronger case, or if it is all just political posturing.
Either way, it doesn’t matter, because the debate has become one of religious beliefs.
You Can’t Negotiate Religion
Both sides appear firmly entrenched. And the entrenchment grows by the day. Jeroen ijsselbloem, who chairs the eurogroup of 19 eurozone finance ministers insists UK Must Abide by EU Rules Post Brexit to Secure ‘Passporting’ Rights.
Given that hardening stance, the UK may as well sit down with the Pope in an effort to negotiate the “Holy Ghost” out of the “Trinity”.
Risk to UK
The risk to the UK is negotiations drag on and on with costs piling up. As long as the UK remains in the EU, the UK arguably has bills to pay.
Some propose the EU will purposely drag out negotiations in hopes the UK gives up.
The political irony in all of this is the EU does not remotely come close to abiding by its four founding principles.
EU Hypocrites on Free Movement of Goods
Think goods move freely? Then think again. Please consider French Farmers Dump 90,000 Bottles Worth of Spanish Wine Because…Spanish!
EU Hypocrites on Free Movement of Services and Freedom of Establishment
To understand the hypocrisy inherent in free movement of services, look no further than French rules on nearly everything. Businesses cannot fire workers, move elsewhere, shut plants, etc.
Worse yet are totally arcane rules and regulations in Germany.
A prime case in point is Germany’s Apprenticeship System.
After 18 months of study, $2,200 in tuition and three exams, Ewa Feix is now permitted by German law to bake two variations of cupcakes.
“Not pretzels, not Black Forest gâteau, not bread,” said Ms. Feix, a Canadian who moved to Germany in 2009. Becoming a professional bread baker entails a three-year apprenticeship and more exams.
Germany’s thicket of rules and standards shields roughly 150 professions from competition, from ski instructors to well-diggers. Stiff fines await uncertified practitioners. German authorities conduct thousands of enforcement raids each year.
Strong middle-class support, particularly among Chancellor Angela Merkel’s supporters, means the German system has defied repeated attempts at reform.
EU Hypocrites on Free Movement of Persons
The EU “Dublin” rule requires an asylum seeker to register in the first country the refugee landed. How did that work out? And how many cascading walls in how many countries came about as a result? Is bribing a country with payments as Germany did Turkey in the spirit of the rule? What about the positions of Austria, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic?
EU Hypocrites on Free Movement of Capital
Greece is still under capital controls. Cyprus was under capital controls from 2013 to 2015.
Nothing to Negotiate
There is nothing at all to negotiate given outright religious warfare. Moreover, the UK needs to convince all 27 countries across the table to accept the results.
Spain brought up Gibraltar in the negotiation process. This is yet another religious battle that cannot be won.
It’s hard enough dealing with religious zealots, but it’s even harder dealing with 27 religious hypocrites, needing to convince all of them.
Just Leave
There is one and only one solution to this madness: Just leave.
In Don’t trigger Article 50 – Just Leave Ingrid Detter de Frankopan, a professor of international law who holds three doctorates, one specifically on European law, makes a tremendous case doing just that.
Second rate lawyers are misleading everyone in the country by insisting that, in order to leave the European Union it is essential to “trigger” Article 50 in its entirety. This line has been swallowed whole by the government, the media and commentators. It is, however, absolute nonsense. Under international law and under Article 50 (1) itself, only notice to leave is necessary.
The horror that I feel about this misdirection is compounded by that the fact that if Article 50(2) is ‘triggered’ it implies that the UK government accepts that the EU will decide the conditions of UK’s withdrawal. This has serious consequences. An arbitrary two-year negotiation window; a supreme agency problem between negotiating parties (the European Commission and various powerful governments) and a ratification process that is far from certain. All the while we will be contributing approximately £40bn gross, or £20bn net, to the European project. We will be paying for them to negotiate – and once we get to the end of the timeline there will be no real incentive to reach prompt agreement, as well as no reason to be true to their negotiated position. In fact any excuse of an election, a financial crisis or a small war – could derail years and millions of man-hours of work.
Now turn this situation on its head. The United Kingdom withdraws from the European Union (as directed by the people of the country in the referendum of June 2016) in March 2017 with immediate effect. The European Union loses almost 14% of its revenues overnight. I suppose our mission / delegation will be received with a great deal more alacrity then they would otherwise. This would turn the screw on the Commission and force them to conclude negotiations rapidly. It would give them less of a chance to strike back, ask for an “exit” premium and force a rapid conclusion on all parties. While it is true that this could descend into a tariff war – it is likely that we would end up with this situation at the end of two years anyway. There is the Commission, 27 other governments with diverse objectives ranging from using Britain’s exit to foster greater unity or to underline the need for retaining sovereignty within the Union.
After the UK leaves, perhaps the EU will take trade talks a bit more seriously. If not, “Hard Brexit” was an inevitable position from the outset.
In light of various religious battles that cannot possibly be won, “Just Leave” makes perfect sense.
Comments on Mainstream Media Trust
I offered this as an op-ed to the Financial Times, three days ago. Their policy requires three day, and they do not notify on rejections. Other places demand as much as a week or 10 days. No one bothers to send an email, even if something is immediately rejected.
I was pretty sure this would be the result. The Financial Times, like the New York Times, like the Washington Post, like Bloomberg will not publish an opinion article, no matter how well it’s presented, that disagrees with their editorial opinion.
These news media all parrot each other in thought process and political correctness, contributing to the Record Low Trust in Mainstream Media of a mere 32%
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Most thinking people have long supplemented the MSM with other – more intellectually honest – news sources.
I have a number of information sources that I rely on for “the rest of the story”; appreciate your sharing your knowledge with me.
I’ve been saying “just leave” from the very beginning. Congrats Mish. You usually take a long time, but eventually get everything right.
Now — about that religious belief in technology, particularly self-driving cars 🙂
You mean your own religious beliefs about self-driving cars? Mike’s are scientific.
“Worse yet are totally arcane rules and regulations in Germany….A prime case in point is Germany’s Apprenticeship System.”
I don’t really get this criticism. Let’s say there was no EU. Germany would have, an arcane apprenticeship system.
So basic economics, with an arcane apprenticeship system Germany is limiting the supply of bakers which increases the wages for bakers but also increases the prices for baked goods.
OK so with the EU it still has the apprenticeship system but anyone in the EU can move to Germany and start baking. Granted they have to go through the apprenticeship system *but* this would still be an increase in the supply of bakers which means lower prices for baked goods (and downward pressure on the wage premium established bakers get).
So what exactly is the problem? If you want Germany to have a freer labor system, the EU seems to be a step towards that. But if you wanted to get rid of the apprenticeship system, it would require a lot more EU wide rules and such. If the EU was dissolved, there would nothing above Germany so little likelihood that the apprenticeship system would be broken down.
If you want Germany to keep its apprentice system, the EU seems like a step in the wrong direction as it makes it easier for a non-German to move to Germany, take the classes and set up shop as a baker. However from a nationalist perspective Germany retains its sovereignty. Bread baked on German soil will follow German rules. If you go to the UK you can risk eating crappy bread at their bakeries. If the EU didn’t exist what would be in its place? Errr bread baked on German soil would still follow German rules whether that’s a good or bad thing.
And how is this unlike the US? Can I move from NJ to say, VA and try to become a baker? Sure. Might I discover in VA there are rules they apply to bakeries that don’t apply in NJ? Sure. How is that a crises that requires US states ‘exit’?
Try Lawyer, Doctor, realtor, armed security…… US states are certainly no less competition restricting by means of certification.
Once you fall for the scam, that a bunch of tax feeding hacks, are reliably better judges of the quality of a practitioner in some field, than potential customers of that practitioner, you’re already a willing participant in Der Process. From there on out, it’s just arbitrary implementation detail.
A lawyer who qualified in England cannot prctise in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Different legal systems. Nothing to do with the EU.
I don’t really get this criticism.
Good grief – the point is obvious
The EU, led by Germany insists the UK abide by freedom of movement of Labor and does not remotely come close itself.
sorry still not following:
Right now, you can move from the UK to Germany. However if you want to be a baker you’ll find there’s rules in Germany that are different from the UK and vice versa.
If the EU didn’t exist what would be different? Germany’s baker rules would stand as would the UK’s.
Does the EU have an impact? Yes because if the EU didn’t exist you’d have to get Germany’s permission to move there from the UK and try to jump through their hoops to become a baker. Now Germany can’t stop UK bakers from coming but the same rules apply. So the EU does actually make Germany’s arcane rules harder to have their intended effect. UK bakers can flood Germany, take the classes and start competing with German bakers. If German bakers are super well paid because of all these protective apprenticeship laws, that would put pressure on them.
So what is your criticism of the EU? It seems to me like you don’t have a good one unless you’re the type that thinks those apprenticeship rules are good and it’s a bad thing to put pressure on them.
I think you misunderstand. Instead of saying ‘hence why not EU’ if countries maintain their own bureaucracy, why not be saying ‘ so what is the point of EU’.
It is, discreetly, one or the other. Why should the British be interested in what German bakers get paid, to the point of out-competing them in their villages?
The fact is that EU is similar to a set of rights, hence you will find foreigners applying their rights over local national interests, and that, to my thinking, is not only backwards but perverse. People should be invited to your nation on your conditions, not theirs or that of a third party authority.
I see no reason for countries to become closed without EU, quite the opposite as EU is oppressively dominant of what was previous goodwill and shared endeavour at a local level.
So the problem isn’t that a UK baker who moves to Germany finds she has to jump through a lot of hoops to be a baker there. It’s that Germany has to let a UK citizen move to Germany.
But then what’s Mish’s point about the baking rules?
I am close to calling you divisive, but I’ll read a little lack of thought out of your view instead.
Mish’s example is to disprove the illusion that EU has common legislature, the legislature it is waving in front of UK as what could be perceived as carrying the threat of closing markets.
Personally I couldn’t give a flying f*** what German approval norms are for muffin bakers. What is more, I welcome the reality of regional variation. If a group of people organise their economy and rules a certain way and do not want that changed, it is not my business, but I will be more than happy that I can buy some pastries that are not the same across the whole continent. If the Germans BAN imports of foreign pastries to protect their market, EXACTLY THE SAME APPLIES. If I think the Germans make crap pastry and am an entrepreuneur, I will set up a stand at the border or organise ‘Crumpet Tours’ to Crumpet land.
I leave you in peace with your EU monotone, it does not produce or contribute very much, if anything.
OK but again Germany still gets to be distinctive. Yes a UK baker can move to Germany but since they have to go through the classes and tests Germany dictates you will still probably end up with distinctive German bakeries. If Germany is ‘monotone’ for you it isn’t because of the EU.
It sounds like you’re trying to say your issue is that the EU doesn’t do what people think it does. It doesn’t make Europe like the US because there isn’t really a single set of laws that just cover the whole EU. It’s like you’re saying you like that Germany has special baker rules, you’re mad at the EU not because they knock down those special rules but because the EU sounds like it would knock them down when it really doesn’t?
But the US isn’t that different. States have various license laws for some jobs (like cutting hair). Your license in one state may or may not be accepted in another. A hairdresser in NJ can move out to NC and discover her license doesn’t transfer and she has to pay a NC school for a class and take an NC test before she can do hair in her new state. Does that mean freedom of movement is a sham in the US?
You argue about small potatoes, err bread crumbs. How many small bakeries still exist in Germany as compared to industrial ones? This example was about main street bakery which is more like coffee shop with cakes.
The German industrial apprenticeship programs are quite successful, but also very expensive, and it is not clear whether the end result is what will be in demand.
The point is, there is no internal market in the EU like in the US.
There is free movement of mostly low qualified people from poorer part to richer ones, which take jobs away from the local population struggling to make a living.
Add to it the free movement of all kinds of migrants, and passport-for-pay citizens whichever country lets them in.
No one considers the impact on the evacuated region too. They might receive remittances but with fewer people they suffer GDP contraction and development becomes even harder unless there is some method to attract people back.
Mish’s rhetoric sounds like he is against the apprenticeship rules. You, though, are sounding like they are a good thing. You complain about people taking good jobs away but the German rules seem like they protect ‘good jobs’ and did so before the EU (by protecting ‘good jobs’ we mean artificially making jobs higher pay by adding restrictions on who can do them. I have nothing against someone who bakes muffins but it doesn’t seem to me essentially to human dignity to preserve muffin baker employment any more than it did to keep horse and buggy makers employed.
My reply to you here Brian was posted below your previous comment.
“After 18 months of study, $2,200 in tuition and three exams, Ewa Feix is now permitted by German law to bake two variations of cupcakes.”
If the USA could certify a person competent in any skill for $2.2k in 18 months, that would be a remarkable achievement. USA tuition would be $20k to learn the same thing. Perhaps USA should be debating apprenticeships as an educational alternative, quite apart from the EU discussion.
Mish,
You continue to BLOW away virtually EVERY MSM . I vote MISH for the White house press secratary!
Another excellent piece of the state of affairs. Perhaps Italy will beat them to their own Italiout.
The Monarchy of Britain lies in the balance of the equation. The people are restless everywhere.
I think the UK ought to abide by rule 2. “Workers” – i.e. have a job, pay taxes, contribute to the wealth of the nation. No job, no entry. Same as some other countries as far as I can see.
I am not sure UK wishes to restrict workers. Current EU law is that any EU ‘citizen’ may not be expelled from a member country – they have automatic right to reside.
Schengen or no Schengen is besides the point as it is impossible to control who stays in the UK under current rules.
Surge in EU migrants to UK
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/12/01/11/3AEC1A2200000578-3989400-image-m-17_1480593129463.jpg
From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3989400/Surge-EU-workers-coming-Britain-run-Brexit-vote-means-net-migration-TRIPLE-government-target-335-000.html
Mish, you don’t know how true the analogy to religion is.
I don’t have time to type it all up.
Brexit, similar to the Reformation. There is an EU priesthood.
Treaty of Rome, Holy Roman Empire reconstruction.
http://www.djeppink.eu/en/blog/we-are-all-jesuits
Many can’t see this, it is in the open if people care to dig.
Study Jesuits thinking, approach and how they operate. Dark forces are at the centre, zealots, with a plan that will be achieved without being open about the end game or techniques.
Ian Paisley was an MEP – http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=jesuits
“Second rate lawyers are misleading everyone in the country by insisting that, in order to leave the European Union it is essential to ‘trigger’ Article 50 in its entirety. This line has been swallowed whole by the government, the media and commentators. It is, however, absolute nonsense. Under international law and under Article 50 (1) itself, only notice to leave is necessary.”
Then why haven’t those supporting exit and capable of doing that not done it yet? This can’t be something that only this one legal columnist knows, can it? ALL other lawyers involved are so “second rate.”?
I begin to suspect this situation is being milked by both sides, just as the stupid Great Wall of Mexico issue is being milked here, neither side being sincere about actually fixing the illegal immigration or Brexit problem easily and quickly.
Chance to negotiate is gone if no full Article 50. However, ECJ may be ultimately involved and that is very bad as it’s used as an EU political tool.
If you want to negotiate full Article 50 needed.
It will be messy and unpleasant.
I was neither for or against the EU but my attitude has changed massively as I have read on the subject, from both sides. It is insidious, dark, underhanded. There is a great deal of Jesuit thinking in there.
If you get chance to read. http://themillenniumreport.com/2016/08/adolf-hitler-and-the-jesuit-order/
Research the founders, links to Germany of the 30’s, 40’s, National Socialism.
Study Jesuits then this makes sense. Jean-Claude Juncker profile: ‘When it becomes serious, you have to lie’
BLASPHEMY to criticise the EU – Judge!
http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2013-002-it-is-now-against-the-european-law-to-criticise-the-eu/
Recent law changes are scary, very poorly written and can be used against people criticising the EU.
This is the EU, how it is run. Draw your own conclusions.
Junker, Tusk, Barnier, Verhofstadt, you think your politicians are bad?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10874230/Jean-Claude-Juncker-profile-When-it-becomes-serious-you-have-to-lie.html
This is all BS. Eventually, probably in the next 100 years, there is going to be only one world government, just like on Star Trek. The world will truly be flat and people will be able to live, work (assuming robots/automation haven’t taken away all jobs) or travel wherever they want, whenever they want.
Sounds great in theory but so do a single currency and communism.
If you treat people as a Commodity during the changeover it might work.
However, during the change, unless democracy is banned, you can get Brexit, Trump etc.
So what do you do? You engineer crises and do little about them to force the coming together to help alleviate the pain – sounds like Southern Europe.
Will the US sign up to that?
I’m expecting pain in the UK that might become very nasty, internal and even external. Look what followed the Reformation to see a possible parallel.
Another fundamental EU principle is the redistribution of wealth from the rich parts to the poor regions, or from the western head to the Balkan rear end. Never mind historic, cultural and language differences. Considering that even in the US, there are regions with different subcultures (e.g.California), this is one colossal stupidity.
UK is already begging to pay to EU LOL
“…The (UK) government has acknowledged it is willing to pay Brussels for maintaining access to Europe’s single market even after the UK leaves the EU, for the first time opening the door to British contributions to the EU budget for years after Brexit. Both David Davis, the Brexit secretary and a proponent of EU divorce, and chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond, who campaigned to remain, conceded a trade deal that exchanged EU budget payments for remaining inside the common market — a financial arrangement similar to those of Norway and Switzerland — was one of the options under consideration….”
Mish’s rhetoric sounds like he is against the apprenticeship rules.
I am not against apprenticeships, I am against mandated ones.
Good grief. Who cares if someone makes inferior cupcakes, unless they are outright poisonous? If the cupcakes are bad, word will get around and no one will buy them. The free market will easily sort out the good cupcakes from the bad.
This is all so logical it’s difficult to understand why anyone here can’t see it. And Brian’s arguments are ridiculous.
Absurd rules and regulations in the US, where they exist, haave nothing to do with the key point: The EU wants the UK to abide by freedom of movement of services and jobs, when Germany puts up all kinds of roadblocks denying just that.
The point is blatant hypocrisy. Stupider yet, Germany allows these refugees to enter, then will not let them setup business.
Hmmm…
If Germany let Syrians come in and setup bakeries, would Germany be so willing to let in the refugees?
Door open … come in … everyone welcome! Just don’t setup a bakery, until you have a license that you cannot afford, or an apprenticeship you cannot get because no one will hire you!
Mish
Germany invites migrants, never bothering ask anybody in the Shengen border-free area, then demands that other countries accept their share. That is not hypocrisy, that is imperial rule.
…not to mention the level of beurocracy necessary to set up, enforce and maintain this sysyem, times many thousand goverment mandated employees, teaching the approved baking methods, plus the baking natzis, enforcing that no one cheats.
Article 50 simply informs the EU of our intention to leave, which happens automatically after 2 years or sooner if an agreement is reached.
Hard Brexit means relying on WTO rules alone, and no major economy does this. If treaties do not relate to tariffs and quotas, they will not be lodged with the WTO but more likely with the UN. So trade agreements between the EU and the US, China and India exist, but are lodged with the UN. If we rely on WTO only, all the EU treaties will no longer apply to the UK so we’d need our goods to conform to the standards of the single market and they would need to be seen to conform; there would would no longer be a mutual recognition agreement. That is the problem, not tariffs.
Cameron poured cold water on the Norway option, not because it is bad, but because it is a safe stepping stone out of the EU for the UK. It is not fax diplomacy, nor is it a pay and no say option. What it is is a safe transition to something better, not a destination. The destination is a Europe wide market that is UNECE centric, not Brussels centric.
The option I support is referred to as the Liechtenstein Option: we leave the EU and rejoin EFTA to stay in the EEA; use Article 112 of the EEA agreement to suspend the free movement of people from the EU. Staying in the EEA (the single market) means accepting the laws of the single market. This, however, is about 25% in the the EU rulebook (the acqui). Further the EU is committed to replacing the laws of the EEA by global standards when they are formulated. Even now the majority of those EEA relevant laws are formulated by global and regional bodies above the EU: WHO, UNECE, ILO, GAO etc. In or out of the EEA, the UK would still adopt these standards as law. However, outside the EU, the UK can represent itself at these ‘top tables’ and not be represented by the EU. Further, it would have the right to initiate new standards, which now it cannot as it is an EU competence. True, it would not have a vote in the EU when the standards are turned into EEA-relevant EU law, but so what, they are only rubber stamping what has been agreed already. Once Brussels loses control over the single market, the rules can be changed to allow all members to vote.
Norway pays nothing to the EU to be in the EEA. It pays to take part in EU programs it believes are beneficial; it also supports redevelopment of the poorer countries of the EU. The UK could do the same, however it has commitments to honour in the current budget round.
So as an interim measure, stay in the single market. This parks the trade issue and buys time. There is more than trade to negotiate and 2 years is not long. Outside of the EU we are away from the interference of the ECJ (courts) and we should make sure not to get entangled with the CAP or CFP (agriculture and fisheries), the UK should control its own waters. We would be able to make our own trade agreements.
Mish. You could try submitting to The Yorkshire Post, one of Johnston Publishing’s titles. They did allow comments all through the Brexit non-debate.
“I was pretty sure this would be the result. The Financial Times, like the New York Times, like the Washington Post, like Bloomberg will not publish an opinion article, no matter how well it’s presented, that disagrees with their editorial opinion.”
Spot on, those media outlets have noticeable bias. Even if they pretend they don’t, of if they pretend they’re “centre”, the concept of them not having bias is ridiculous. Of course they do. Even supposing they are “centre” that’s still a specific stance / view / narrative. Even Reuters has a slant (although much more subtle than the other noted media outlets (which can be very bias / 1 dimensional at times of particular issues etc), it is still observable.
MSM is being disrupted by smaller players, which is great. About time it got disrupted. Over the last century it’s done nothing but consolidate and become ever more monopolistic with fewer players owner an ever larger share of all media. Now with technology it’s finally (only just in the past few years – accelerating particularly in the last 1-2 years) being disrupted, decentralised, and pecked down to size. But it doesn’t want to go down without a fight, and will fight back.