You can say the same thing about remainers who are so keen on EU rules which apply to the UK when trading via EU trade agreements or on WTO terms.

We have a democracy and the government is trying to make 2 and 2 add up as near as possible to 4 still - rather than 2. it may have been a dumb thing to vote for , and based on a pack of lies, but the folk voted for leave, and a majority want national control of immigration . Its democratically ,and politically, impossible for May not to deliver both.

You seem to contradict yourself in the second paragraph. You argue for control of immigration, which was impossible before under EU basic rules , and no control of the borders now- which is politically impossible given the referendum vote. You adopt the Corbyn, Islington, marxist , line that the Leave voters were only concerned with money - not nationalism. You seem to assume government could have spent more on covering any negative impact of immigration - when the immigrants more than paid for themselves, and there would have been less to spend on leave voters without them. And you miss the dominant political and economic reality of the last 9 years- that, post the 2008 crash, government had 70 plus billion less, to spend on anything . They, and any other government that didn't believe in fantasy economics, had no money to maintain existing spending - let alone find more.

its now a binary choice - yes or no, whether we have national control or not, and unless the Eu reverses policy, that decides whether we meet the fundamental terms of free access to the single market - although the result is likely to be the same immigration numbers either way.

There's nothing incompetent about whats going on . its just not in May's power to negotiate - with other political parties intervening to try and win some votes- and what we get is totally out of her control so she can't possibly say what she will get.. The only policy she can have, is to get what the Leave voters undenably demanded, and to call whatever else we get, the best possible deal - because thats what it will , by definition , be.


Taking Control means what it always was going to mean - taking what Belgian provinces, Spaniards and Bulgarians will give us.

Besides, if the international students are removed from the statistics numbers, then the number of non-eu migrants who leave will also be significantly reduced, meaning the net migration number may not be reduced as much as some people would like to believe.

A flaw with the current model to calculate migration is that this is a survey based. Any EU migrant can claim they are here temporally can change their mind to start working legally. But the purpose and work eligibility of non-eu migrants are clearly stated on their visa and migration documents.

You're absolutely right.

The EU has a bewildering number of trade schedules. For instance, there are 87 agricultural trade rate quotas in place to protect farmers across 28 member states. And the EU have failed to update their WTO schedules to reflect recent enlargement. Result: uncertified quotas which the EU and WTO keep secret from everyone else.

Dr Liam Fox will have to address these matters in order to implement the country's decision to leave the EU. Let's look at lamb. The EU sets a tariff free quota on lamb imports, on which New Zealand gets the lion's share. Dr Fox will either have to agree a UK share of that lamb quota with the EU or set and agree an entirely new UK lamb quota with WTO. While discussing lamb quotas with the WTO or the EU, you can be sure the New Zealand farming minister will use the opportunity to lobby Dr Fox to increase the NZ lamb quota. The Kiwis have tried this before. After that, there are another 86 agriculture quotas to go.

The UK imported lamb from NZ before we joined the EEC in 1973. But with impending new arrangements, there will be a rare opportunity for agricultural ministries from the around the world to start calling Dr Fox's department.

It's a potential mess. Other than continued membership of the EU Customs Union, I wish I had other solutions.

Is freedom of movement one of the WTO rules?

At what expense? I mean at what properly accounted and declared cost fully auditable as of course it totally is especially the one with the gold plated taps, I'm sure this doesn't leave a huge amount of 'creative leeway'?

More seriously though, was it not some department's job to deal with these things, and what have that department been doing instead?

Only for buying and selling laxatives.

No.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the global body which regulates and facilities international trade. Crucially, the WTO settles trade disputes, when one country thinks another country has either been breaking WTO rules or disputes their trade policy.

The UK is a member of the EU both in its own right and via the EU. All trade deals and disputes are negotiated by the EU on behalf of all EU member states, including the UK.

If the UK government decides to leave the EU Customs Union, then we join the WTO in our own right. Joining the WTO can take time. After the 1991 end of the Soviet Union, the various successor states have had lengthy application processes to join the WTO. Kyrgyzstan joined in 1998, Russia finally joined in 2012 and some other ex-Soviet Union countries are still not WTO members.

You'll have to ask an international trade lawyer to find what happens to UK global trade cover, in the event that we leave the EU Customs Union and don't get agreed WTO membership straight away. I have no idea what happens.

Take no notice, immigration has been an issue for years, at the same time as there being almost a conspiracy among all three parties to marginalise it.

But they're not, are they. A few in Remain are pointing out specific instances where specific elements of the Leave campaign were racist.

Not everyone finds it easy to point the finger and call racism.
Doesn't mean they don't think it.
Remember UKIP's Nazi inspired poster?
I do.
Clearly.

Because we get a much bigger say in EU rules which are generally approved by the Council of [elected] Ministers.

Do you have any evidence that the EU want to be "childish and petulant"? Or just the the EU won't let us have our cake and eat it, not have the benefits with none of the commitments.

It's undemocratic because it's ungovernable, with 27 countries having to agree to stuff. They only way it works is as a top down organisation, hence a commission and council issuing one size fits all diktats.
Sod that, we're leaving 👍

If it was ungovernable, it wouldn't even exist and would have broken up many years ago. One country out of 28 flouncing off in a hissy fit doesn't make it a failure.

The incompetence is getting us into this mess in the first place. It has been obvious for sometime that the speed of immigration combined with the loss of jobs to China from globalisation has created many people who think that they have lost out. Yet we have had a government that hasn't even done the things it could do to help, such as limiting immigration from outside the Eu, built social housing (it was George Osborne who was reported as saying he wouldn't build council houses as they just created Labour voters), and training more medical staff. They then called a referendum without preparing for.one of the outcomes.
Mrs May now.has to sort this out. She should be selling.us a five year stint in the EEA to allow.the government time to learn how to do trade deals, to learn how to govern ourselves again, to set up the functions that have been done by the EU for years, to start to do trade deals with non Eu countries, to take the urgency and therefore the weakness of our negotiating position away.
But she has chosen not to. She has chosen to allow the narrative to be that it's all about the control of our borders (the few surveys there have been about why people voted leave say it wasn't all about immigration -and 48%voted to stay in warts and all). So rather than try to sell a structured 5 to 7 year Eu exit she has has gone for the economically high risk but politically safe option of no Fom and a weak negotiating position on everything else.
It's about one of three things. Either no confidence that she could deliver a soft Brexit, or a personal desire to reduce immigration whatever the cost or a political calculation that it's what people will vote for in 2020.
What the UK government hasn't done is reduce immigration when it could, prepare for.a referendum outcome in advance and then have the guts to do a controlled exit over a period that allows the economy time to adjust. Hence my view that it's competence is suspect.

I've often said that I don't think the UK public properly understands the mentality of average mainland EU citizen. They (by and large) see the EU as a collective that gives them stability and security Most of them have seen their country dominated by one empire or another in the last 100 years and see the EU as a natural democratic alternative.

When you view the EU from that perspective you start to understand that the main concern of member countries is not short term trade issues, it's the long term survival of the organization. Brexit presents a fundamental risk not because it weakens the EU economically or politically but because it will stir up anti-EU feelings in other nations and boost other secessionist movements. As such they will have very little interest in making the process easy for Britain or bending over backwards to give us what we want. Obviously they can't ignore basic market pressures (especially given how fragile EU economies are right now) but they will accept some pain rather than undermine EU principles.

We're not going to remain in the single market because it will 100% mean keeping the existing economic and trade rules that the EU imposes today - and the Tory Brexiteers will stage a coup if May tries that. And we're not going to have a complete trade agreement with the EU either because the member states are not going to fast track that on our behalf. We have to get used to the idea that this is going to be a hard and bumpy landing and the EU is not going to do anything to make it easier. The best thing we can do is win the public relations battle because the public opinion is the one thing that the EU does worry about and if they are seen as too belligerent or deliberately obstructive it will only help the likes of the Le Penn and 5 Star.

What does this even mean???

Without a strong economy people will be worse off.

'We are making ourselves poorer to make ourselves more important' - that's crazy talk.

Its the Monty Python Black Knight complex, quite common among Brexiters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blac..._(Monty_Python)

These people are in a minority even within the Parliamentary Tory Party. If Mrs May allows herself to be their hostage -allowing the tail to wag the dog - then she's a weak leader, just like Cameron - and look what happened to him. she should lead, not follow.

This report confirms what you're saying
http://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uplo...-months-on.pdf
Go to page 10 "UK government"

"Despite the appointments Theresa May made on entering Number 10, it is not clear who will be responsible for negotiating Brexit, at either the ministerial or more technical level."

"But six months later, the hiatus looks less like calmness and more like transfixion in the Article 50 headlights. May has staked her credibility on getting to the Article 50 notification without undue delay, locking in the end of March 2017 as her deadline. However, the articulation of little more than a series of unrelated and mutually conflicting aspirations cannot hide the absence of a game-plan"

"Meanwhile, and despite an ineffective Parliamentary opposition, factions on both sides of the Conservative Party threaten to hamstring May as she inches along the Brexit tightrope"

It's really not about letting us having our cake, a decent trade deal will benefit BOTH sides.

The FTA's with Mexico, South Korea etc don't involve commitments to FOM so let's just concentrate on the trade. If the EU can't see the benefit of mutually beneficial logic then that is there choice. However, it shouldn't change the decision that the British people made.

It means that even if splitting up a destructive marriage costs you money, you still go through with it. You don't continue in miserable existence just to maintain a healthy bank balance.

FTA's like those you mention are USELESS to UK in terms of trade. They export goods we are require a deal that involves exporting services.

I thought we needed to get out because we are dictated to by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels? Now we are moaning because in reality each EU country has a say in treaty changes.