4 ms·

Sad bookends to a poorly thought out process. The trade deal with the EU was also kind of sad because it revolved around "territorial waters" for Fishing which

Sad bookends to a poorly thought out process. The trade deal with the EU was also kind of sad because it revolved around "territorial waters" for Fishing which is < 1% of the economy, while saying nothing of Services Sector and of course Immigration Control. The biggest challenge for the liberal politics in the coming decade is how to get ordinary people to weigh long term risks more intentionally, while not alienating them because of bad/heavy handed governance.

oblio 6y ago
I'm guessing the fishing debate was for political brownie points, à la US coal. You know, something obvious and easy to understand by the layperson.
- PoachedSausage 6y ago
  That is how it appeared to me. Like Vultures fighting over bare bones. It would have been better if they had a agreed a 10 year moratorium on fishing in EU and UK water to let fish stocks recover.
google234123 6y ago
That is disingenuous. There were many other issues. e.g. The EU also wanted other powers and wanted their courts to have jurisdiction over the UK.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
If you consider that the UK got an agreement on goods where we have a deficit but not one on services where we have a surplus then it doesn't look like a good outcome.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Plus services are about 80% of the UK economy (more if you start filtering out things that rely on huge subsidies...).
- thu2111 6y ago
  There's no deal on services because there's no single market in services for there to be a deal about. One of the sad truths about the EU, and one reason the UK has left, is that the much vaunted "single market" was always first and foremost designed for the purposes of France and Germany. Their economies are more goods export oriented. Once goods rules were made uniform (always to the benefit of those two), the EU mysteriously lost interest in creating a single market for services. There has been very little progress for a long time in even basic things like mutual recognition.
  - bkor 6y ago
    > the purposes of France and Germany. Do you have anything more concrete than the usual "France/Germany decide everything"? UK got loads of exceptions to the standard EU rules. UK also was able to influence the EU heavily. UK also pushed for expanding the EU greatly this so the UK had a source for cheap labour. This conflicts with your view quite a bit.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      Yeah yeah, the UK influenced the EU so heavily it ended up choosing to leave. I've already explained one way in which the EU is basically oriented towards the needs of France and Germany - the single market for services never really happened. It was promised and that promise was never fulfilled. Why? Because Germany and France don't export many services. Even selling of goods and services online only started to be paid attention in 2015, decades after the single market for goods, and the EU has mostly made things worse for online sellers via things like its VAT rules, which are horrifically complex to implement. Basically you can't do it because it's so complex, so you have to get a dedicated third party company to process the VAT stuff for you, which imposes costs on everyone. Meanwhile the only thing that came out of their supposed digital services market strategy was a highly controversial change to copyright law, the product of vast amounts of lobbying. In Germany it was so controversial it even led to a bomb threat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market#United_Kingdom_position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_... Things that could actually make it easier to sell the sorts of services that the UK is strong in never even made it to the table. Instead there is a very vague set of general statements in the treaties that don't mean anything, leading to lots of very silly court cases, like when someone selling a laser tag game in Germany bought laser guns from the UK and residents took them to the EU courts, arguing that "human dignity" meant that this service should be restricted. And the courts agreed. Really, who has time for this kind of stuff? The EU has time to standardise banana straightness (read my other post) and kettle power levels, but the basics of "can I open an entertainment business in another country without being shut down by bizarre legal arguments" isn't there.

oblio 6y ago

I'm guessing the fishing debate was for political brownie points, à la US coal. You know, something obvious and easy to understand by the layperson.

PoachedSausage 6y ago
That is how it appeared to me. Like Vultures fighting over bare bones. It would have been better if they had a agreed a 10 year moratorium on fishing in EU and UK water to let fish stocks recover.

google234123 6y ago

That is disingenuous. There were many other issues. e.g. The EU also wanted other powers and wanted their courts to have jurisdiction over the UK.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

If you consider that the UK got an agreement on goods where we have a deficit but not one on services where we have a surplus then it doesn't look like a good outcome.

LatteLazy 6y ago
Plus services are about 80% of the UK economy (more if you start filtering out things that rely on huge subsidies...).
thu2111 6y ago
There's no deal on services because there's no single market in services for there to be a deal about. One of the sad truths about the EU, and one reason the UK has left, is that the much vaunted "single market" was always first and foremost designed for the purposes of France and Germany. Their economies are more goods export oriented. Once goods rules were made uniform (always to the benefit of those two), the EU mysteriously lost interest in creating a single market for services. There has been very little progress for a long time in even basic things like mutual recognition.
- bkor 6y ago
  > the purposes of France and Germany. Do you have anything more concrete than the usual "France/Germany decide everything"? UK got loads of exceptions to the standard EU rules. UK also was able to influence the EU heavily. UK also pushed for expanding the EU greatly this so the UK had a source for cheap labour. This conflicts with your view quite a bit.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Yeah yeah, the UK influenced the EU so heavily it ended up choosing to leave. I've already explained one way in which the EU is basically oriented towards the needs of France and Germany - the single market for services never really happened. It was promised and that promise was never fulfilled. Why? Because Germany and France don't export many services. Even selling of goods and services online only started to be paid attention in 2015, decades after the single market for goods, and the EU has mostly made things worse for online sellers via things like its VAT rules, which are horrifically complex to implement. Basically you can't do it because it's so complex, so you have to get a dedicated third party company to process the VAT stuff for you, which imposes costs on everyone. Meanwhile the only thing that came out of their supposed digital services market strategy was a highly controversial change to copyright law, the product of vast amounts of lobbying. In Germany it was so controversial it even led to a bomb threat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market#United_Kingdom_position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_... Things that could actually make it easier to sell the sorts of services that the UK is strong in never even made it to the table. Instead there is a very vague set of general statements in the treaties that don't mean anything, leading to lots of very silly court cases, like when someone selling a laser tag game in Germany bought laser guns from the UK and residents took them to the EU courts, arguing that "human dignity" meant that this service should be restricted. And the courts agreed. Really, who has time for this kind of stuff? The EU has time to standardise banana straightness (read my other post) and kettle power levels, but the basics of "can I open an entertainment business in another country without being shut down by bizarre legal arguments" isn't there.