Cliff Edge anyone?

So much to do by the final date. I think as yet we have still got no real idea of the work to be done or the problems that will continue to surface as the talks progress.

Yes I think as far as I understand we leave once we Brexit. So the aim will have to renegotiate before Brexit I suppose.

But will be able to remain within it without a new agreement? Some of these things it transpires are an automatic 'out' I when we leave the EU - such as Euratom.

Ryan Air on 4 this morning, reiterating the urgency to clarify whether or not we will remain in "open skies" arrangement. If we withdraw, Ryan Air will take all planes out of the UK.

wish someone would.

That sounds like, "Beam me up....", whitewave.

Interesting article by Andrew Rawnsley -extracts below.

"To the apparent surprise of some of the politicians, who willed our self-ejection from the EU, the relationship touches everything from radioactive waste to airline flight paths, to the safety of medicines, to the regulation of data flows. The notion that such a deep and mulidimensional relationship could be entirely recast in less than two years was always for the birds." " With a bound we can be free" competes against "have your cake and eat it" to be one of the cruellest deceptions peddled during the Brexit referendum.

"The battle for transition seems to have been won within cabinet......... (but for how long?) but don't be too beguiled by the apparent outbreak of cabinet unity about a transition. (neither they nor the E27 appear to have a clue as to where the UK is going, and it seems to have been forgotten by the likes of DD, Fox and May that transition arrangements have to be agreed by the E27)

This infuriates the Brextremists who are largely not prepared to extend membership a minute more than 31/03/19. Nothing will persuade them that transition is necessary Unity therefore will be meaningless unless all can agree where they want to transmit to.

Frankfurt is saying help, there's not enough room!

A quick catch up with city moves.

Bank of America - selected Dublin as its post Brexit hub. It has 700 already in Dublin, and 6500 staff in U.K., it will be moving more employees to Dublin.

Morgan Stanley has picked Frankfurt and will shift probably 200 staff to Frankfurt.

Citi- is intending to beef up its presence in Frankfurt.

Deutsche Bank has told its 98000 staff that UK roles will need to move tonFrankfurt or new staff hired. It employs 9000 staff in the UK and it has said that 4000 of these are to move to the EU.

Very interesting link Mamie thank you. It is enough to make you weep.

No I think he is definitely anti. He has this model called Flexcit which involves EFTA as part of an interim process.
I think he is getting crosser and crosser as Brexit is such a disaster that it may end up being abandoned.
(Hurrah say the rest of us ?).
I am impressed that he can do a blog a day on such diverse parts of the process though.

Interestingly I have never thought he was really anti EU but stated things as they were - if anything I would have said he was pro EU.

I suppose it depends on the level of deep knowledge of the facts which makes the difference to how they put things.

Sorry, Mamie, your link.

"There is a terrifying vacuum at the heart of our weirdly trivialised debate over Brexit", he writes. "Ministers are completely failing to explain to us the immense practical implications of their decision that Britain will leave not just the single market but also the wider European Economic Area (EEA), to which we send between them £230 billion a year of our exports".

That's actually a useful way of putting things – and different. We've seen and heard an enormous amount about the downside of the Efta/EEA from every Tom Dick and Harry you can imagine. Just about everybody with a pulse and an opinion has been on the job.

But, as Booker writes, "The facts of what this faces us with are inescapable. By choosing to become what the EU calls a 'third country', we will also exclude ourselves from that complex system of 'Customs Co-operation' which enables us to move our goods unimpeded to any country in the EU or the EEA".

From Maizie's link. Quite frightening really.
Also true if things carry on as they are.
What does May have to lose by telling the voters what is going on? Why is it left to us to find out from any source possible what people with the right knowledge think?
Why are there not more experts involved in this monumental task?

I am sure I wouldn't agree with Richard North at all if I met him, but I cannot deny the depth of erudition that he brings to these posts. It is such a shame that people who agree with his anti-EU views don't seem to want to read what he has to say.

My grandson has autism and is 15. He is allowed to think that Gove looks like Toad when he smiles.
He probably reads more about politics and politicians than many gransnetters. Having been born in the UK but not considered British because his mum is Danish, he knows a lot about the real issues, thanks, cindersdad.

Yes, I do think anyone who has lived in the UK and paid taxes and NI for the same length of time that any UK citizen living abroad loses their vote is right. It's reciprocal to give rights to the one group after 15 years, if taking them away from the other group.

mamie good link and like ww I despair at the ignorance that abounds amongst the political classes. Not least DD. I see he is in the running for leader my God they must be desparate.

Thai you for the link Mamie. - many of those articles I had already read but there were a couple I had not - makes you want to weep at the misunderstandings which abound and the lack of expertise of those who are unfortunately 'in charge' of the UK and this awful Brexit process!

I think that ridiculing politicians usually detracts from the real issues. We should not factor in likenesses to fictional characters but rather consider what they have said and done.

Very few current politicians have shown themselves to be completely honest and deserving of any confidence in them. Even those who have been honest get punished by the electorate at the polls. Why is this and how do we return to a more civilized way of doing things.

Politics has certainly broken because the middle ground has shrunk leaving the extremes of left and right in the ascendancy with common sense being squeezed out. Why is this, in this country the electoral system forces us to choose hard right or hard left neither of which work. This in turn results in voter apathy and growing disconnection from those who rule us.

Brexit built on lies and dogma is just one example. There is in reality no soft Brexit, only Hard Brexit or no Brexit at all. Logic tells an increasing grumbling majority that the latter is the lesser evil. To progress in the future we need a change in the voting system to allow real choices for everyone.

Such a change would mean no majority government ever again and having to compromise on everything. That would be better than the current situation.

We think that our democracy is undemocratic and disconnected which it is. The situation in the US is even worse. The last presidential election had almost 50% voter apathy, a slight lead in the popular vote for Hilary Clinton yet due to the outdated electoral college system a president not fit for purpose was elected.

I hope my rant encourages reflection and inspires some of you to support groups like "Make Votes Matter" and "The European Movement". Bombard your MP with constructive comment, you have plenty of ammunition. Only the LibDems. follow these causes, a few Labour MPs and even fewer Conservatives. People power has worked in the past over almost 1000 years and can again. Women's vote, the Magna Carta and many other foundations of democracy only came about because of people power. Systems right for their time need to evolve and be questioned when they cease to be fit for their time.

Polarized politics has had its day but won't change unless there is a quiet revolution.

You judge politicians by the way they look?

Do you think non EU citizens living here should have had the vote too?

This article about the terrifying vacuum at the heart of the debate by Richard North, a "leaver", spells out the disaster of a cliff edge Brexit.
www.eureferendum.com/default.aspx
I hope that people will take the trouble to read it.

I think he looks like Gollum. Can't believe, when I see him, that he is one of the most powerful men in this country .

Whitewave my grandson thinks that Gove looks like Toad when he smiles.

Tegan, all EU citizens living here could not vote either, even though they had paid tax and national insurance for decades.

'Fortunately, I was able to vote in the referendum. Many Brits abroad were not so lucky due to a rule preventing them from voting if they had lived abroad for more than 15 years.
In the Conservatives 2015 manifesto, David Cameron promised to scrap that rule.

But the government then announced that it couldn't implement the new voting arrangements in time for the referendum. Instead, it promised that all Britons abroad would have 'Votes for Life' by the time of the next General Election in 2020.

When I pointed out to politicians that a vote by 2020 would be of no use should there be a second referendum, or indeed a snap election, I was told categorically that was not going to happen.

As it turned out, my premonition was correct, so yet again, many were denied a vote, and what's more, the pledge to return voting rights was removed from the Queen's Speech and the Tory party manifesto.

To be denied a vote that could directly affect your life so dramatically - not once, but twice - is cruel and underhand.

Despite worries about the election when it was announced, the result has changed everything. May is powerless, her supposed mandate gone, and the mood of the country, and the debate, has changed'
..part of something I've just read on facebook. I hadn't realised that so many people living in Europe had been promised a vote and then had it taken away from them .

We can't trust Gove he is a slippery toad