Announced today, that any EU/UK post Brexit trade deal may need to be ratified by all 38 member Parliaments effectively giving them all a veto.

Eleanor Sharpston, the European Court of Justice’s Advocate General, has issued a legal opinion ruling that an EU free trade deal with Singapore must be agreed by all member states.

If this ruling is adopted by the ECJ (and the Advocate General's rulings usually are) the implications for a post Brexit deal in anything but a very long timescale are dire.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...xit-deal-veto/

So WTO rules it will be - and anyone who thinks that is good news doesn't understand it.

We have voted out of one type of government that is alien to us to another type of governance that isn't up to the job.

An interim deal with the EU to avoid the cliff edge would have been possible if the government wasn't so obsessed by control of the borders, an obsession that has come about because over the last nine years the UK governments have failed to deal properly with the effects that immigration has had on public services and housing costs. If they had limited non-EU immigration more effectively and funded the public services adequately then we would not be in this mess. We might now have the right to kick the governments out, all we need now is to find a competent one!

I'm not sure this is really the greatest advert for the EU as a smoothly-running unit, and people would have to be really keen on trading with it to want to have to put up with all those extra terms added by every region that wanted its own special place in the deal.

Does the UK lose its veto on anything after 'A50 day'? If trade deals with the EU take 7+ years to do then maybe they won't care that the UK uses their veto as a bargaining chip and adds an extra 2 years to it? And then it would need rewriting anyway to take out all the Brown M&M clauses we added but nobody spotted because they just assumed it was the brits being difficult again.

And it also illustrates the problem with the EU and why we need to get out - cos it can never agree on anything and if it does it takes years.

Why should we need 37 other parliaments to agree a deal with a small island like Singapore which we have strong historic ties to when we could do a trade deal far more quickly on our own

This is an old chestnut and is hardly news and would only apply to a UK/EU trade agreement if it covers competencies which are not exclusive to the EU.

I guess this is what they meant by "taking back control" (from the UK).

Yes indeed, how can you have many countries deciding, with-in the illusion of EU democracy what is best for a member state.

Why is this news? Post Brexit, the UK will be outside the EU, so any trade deal will have to be ratified by all individual member states, as has always been the case.

You have no idea what the referendum was about, do you?

Doesn't this contradict the idea of the EU being an 'authoritarian dictatorship'? I've seen it bashed for being a dictatorship that rules from the top down and an unwieldy bureaucratic mess (because of the veto element) at virtually the same time and by the same people.

non-EU migration has been made a lot harder than Labour days, particularly since 2012.
If you look at the breakdowns of EU and Non-migrations in different subcategories, you can see the difference in trends. Many of the non-eu migration routes are difficult to limit, such as family route, subject to human rights judgement from UK and EU courts. The attempt to reduce overseas student numbers have also been criticised by many.
What the Labour government in 2004 should have done is to set up restrictions like what Germany and other EU countries did to deter and delay the impact as much as possible. But Tony Blair decided to do the complete opposite by opening borders with no decent restrictions especially on low-skilled migrants. Even though the Con government did what they could with Romania and Bulgaria, in terms of opening labour market, it was too late, and we have seen the increasing trends on incoming migration from these poor countries.

When there's demand for cheap labour from employers, the government should not have allowed it to become a race to the bottom, by using taxpayers money to subsidise low-skill migrant workers in the form of in-work benefit such as tax credits and housing benefit, as well as free NHS and education, the country is effectively running a business at loss. This is one of the reasons the majority of voters have voted to have a complete change. You cant simply build your way out of all the trouble. If you simply want to build unlimited housing for all people who wish to migrate here, soon most of people will be living in tower blocks and using crammed trains.

Immigration was scarcely even an issue in the 2010 General Election, most of the debates centred on other areas.

It does show how effective UKIP, the Tory Right and the right wing press have been in whipping it up and putting it front and centre as if it's the No.1 "problem" facing the UK right now.

That's probably because back then everything else was overshadowed by the financial crisis since 2008. Besides the overpowering political correctness was also stronglly advocated by Labour and Con, Gillian Duffy and Gordon Brown spring to mind.

If they had handled non EU immigration effectively many would probably be on here shouting racist at them. If the vote had gone to Remain then very few of the Remain camp would be concerned with non EU immigration and would be shouting racist at any efforts to control non EU immigration.

Er, how can a private remark be strong advocacy of anything?

Ah, more made up facts from right, marvellous!

Precisely any discussion on immigration was still being shouted down as naked racism. The surge in the BNP in 2010 was probably the advance guard of those desperately seeking an alternative to the cosy accordance that existed between the three parties who between them thought they could count on the support of loyal voters.

Thats what happens when you let democratically elected politicians make decisions.
Looks like the EU suffers from too much democracy.
What was that about it being undemocratic? Another lie chewing dust.

I did not say it was fact I gave it as opinion on situations that had not occurred. The fact that many in Remain are claiming the Leave campaign was won on a racist agenda may help explain the point.

Theresa May already knew about this. Read the transcript of the evidence she gave in the Commons parliamentary liaison committee on Tuesday 20 December 2016.

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/c...ember-2016.pdf

Go to questions 72, 73 and 74 - page 20

Also read Q22 which seems to indicate Mrs May expect two set of negotiations: one covering article 50 and another covering some sort of transitional arrangements.

While Mrs May worries about the ratification process for the various negotiations, Dr Liam Fox is now tackling 87 agricultural trade rate quotas and over 5,000 general tariff schedules.

Agricultural trade rate quotas are extraordinarily complex.
http://capreform.eu/wto-dimensions-o...ultural-trade/

To deliver on Mrs May's promise that "Brexit mans Brexit", Dr Fox will need to resolve these matters.

I think this country is tired of feeling that the people and society are there purely to serve the economy.

The economy runs (and thrives) because of the people, not the other way round. Hence the population made it clear in the referendum that the people are more important than the economy and hence if there is an impact on the economy it because of their personal choice, so be it.

We don't exist to 'flatline' our way through life so that we don't do anything to rock the boat which could rock the economy. We should not control our entire lives and the direction of our country on what might or might not have an impact on the economy. The people are the master and the economy is our servant.

So if the EU wants to be childish and petulant over a deal that would be mutually beneficial to both sides, then so be it. We'll go down the WTO route and carry on until they return to their senses.

The country has made it's decision, the governments job is to implement that decision and to coin that phrase we just need to keep calm and carry on.

Indeed, but that's because those other issues were of more pressing concern and were genuinely impacting on people's lives in a big way. Immigration and freedom of movement does smack of a 'cause of the moment' and almost a convenient diversion from the real problems affecting the country. You can excuse UKIP as a far right and anti-immigration party putting it front and centre but anyone else doing so is engaging in a touch of smoke and mirrors.

Non-EU migration only became an issue when the reported numbers increased - thanks to Theresa May insisting that tens of thousands of students be included in the headline figure, even though they're paying to study here and the vast majority go home once they graduate.

But that is the internationally agreed method of counting immigration so why change it just to make the Government look like they are doing something they are not?

Voting was the easier bit. Implementation will be harder.

David Cameron resigned because he didn't want to implement the country's decision. Theresa May has chosen EU's Article 50 exit method, because she can't think of another way to implement the country's decision.

Stupidly, at the October 2016 Conservative Party, she told the rest of the EU that she'd trigger Article 50 by the end of March 2017. She hoped the EU would start informal negotiations, but they won't. This unforced error gave the rest of the EU time to prepare for Mrs May's March 2017 trigger date. Since then, Mrs May and her government have made little progress. Inconsistent ministerial briefings suggest ongoing cabinet divisions.

Reality is replacing brazen optimism at implementing the country's decision. David Davies hints at payments to maintain some sort of UK access to the Single Market. Mrs May won't rule this out, either. More significant than Mrs May's 'mixed agreement' admission is her recognition, at last, that there will be a need for a "new agreement" with the EU. (her words not mine).

In readiness for WTO membership, Dr Liam Fox has copied all the EU trade schedules Over 5,000 of them. Fair enough. But he's leaves himself exposes to disputes with the WTO's members or the EU or both. Overwhelmed by the complexity on everything from frozen chicken trade rate quotas to GATT Article XXIV, he will struggle to implement the country's decision.

Mrs May's biggest worry is not the EU, but domestic voter betrayal.

I've never understood why Leavers are so keen on "WTO rules". It doesn't give us any control at all - it's a totally undemocratic organisation where we have to agree to their rules whether we like them or not.