EU wants us to pay 89 BILLION divorce charges.

Not really an answer whitewave ?

There is much speculation and talking the UK down, but as Brexit is only just underway nothing much is actually happening, good, bad or indifferent.

If you have to ask that question, then you aren’t paying attention.

What's bad at the moment that particularly relates to brexit?

Petra exactly, regarding Goldman Sachs, there will be some who may go to Frankfurt, but London is still the place to be ( a friend’s son works for them and London is his whole world.?)
It isn’t bad at all at the moment whitewave so no point in speculating.

Wonder how bad it has got to get before brextremists agree that Brexit isn’t such a good idea after all.

And in the meantime, according to the OECD, the UK has the worst economic growth not only of all EU countries, but also the G7.

Doing really well, aren't we?

Of course none of this was highlighted before the referendum

Isn't it extraordinary, that 16 months after the referendum, there is not even an agreement on what our liabilities are. It should have been possible for the British Govt and the EU to agree, firstly, what items should be included and secondly how much that adds up to, but no. If you want to know how much we are honourably bound to pat (termed the divorce bill by the brexit tabloids), then take you pick from any number of numbers pulled out of a hat.

fullfact.org/europe/eu-divorce-bill/

dbD i think that what you have talked about is forming a small part of the negotiations.

But I wouldn’t get too hung up on 89bn, that is a figure plucked out of thin air and means nothing at this stage.

petra if Goldman Sachs goes others will follow. But of course Day 6 is absolutely right let's walk away without a deal. Let's make a complete and utter mess of this instead of just a partial one. Never mind if it will plunge this country into depression and make things worse. It's the principle that counts isn't it and we won't pay that much to Johnny Foreigner. After all we are BRITISH

durhamjjen
Re Goldman Sachs. The figure you give still leaves 5,700 working in London. I would imagine they won't be fighting each other for a chance to work in Frankfurt, it's not exactly London.

It's funny how Brexiters complain about being labelled thick racists when they never say anything nasty about snowflake elites who voted remain!
I am sure all Leave voters were highly cultured , intelligent, well informed and supporters of multiculturalism . Let's leave it at that.

Just a few points on the finances.
For many years the EU accounts could not be approved & signed because of poor financial & budgetary management - I remember Neil Kinnock as a Commissioner strongly criticising the EU and telling them to get their house in order - in the last couple of years there's been improvement & the accounts have been signed but they are "qualified" accounts - i.e. "they're OK apart from the £8 billion of expenditure that can't be accounted for" - so given their record in financial matters what've they based their £89 billion figure on?
I seem to remember that the UK voted against the current EU budget which was increased despite the financial difficulties in the member states - but we were overruled.
I think it's reasonable to accept our liabilities - but let's offset our assets as well - we've paid for a lot of capital expenditure projects in the EU member states and we should get credit for them.
We shouldn't be tied to any current or future expenditure in which we have no say. For example - all our pensions in the UK - State, Public & Private sectors - have been reviewed and reformed in recent years - less inflation-proofing & higher age before we receive them - so I'd think it unfair if we had to keep paying for unreformed EU pensions.

No mention of any such figure on the news- sounds a bit like a Daily Mail figure picked out of thin air

Brexit “The most grotesque example of John Stuart Mills “Tyranny if the majority” “

She has gone into Maybot mode again, hasn't she?

infacts.org/dont-cry-brexit-britain/

I am interested to know where the bill of 89bn€ has come from.
I understood that the only figures talked sbout officially to date are the Florence speech figures. So Maybot has bandied about the figures that we owe up unti the end of the budget. We are signed and sealed for that.

I understood that the negotiations are about the areas that may indicate a U.K. liability and not yet any actually liability?

Did you see the tweet by the chief of Goldman Sachs about going to spend much more time in Frankfurt from now on?
They've leased enough office space for 800 staff.

dj losing our dominance in the financial sector is worrying indeed. WTO doesn’t cover that area, so we need to think very carefully about losing 40% of our income.

The bill the HoC voted on was for an ADVISORY referendum - it morphed into a binding one because Cameron said he would abide by the result.
This figure has been talked about before as it is the money the UK agreed to pay the last time the 7 year plan was done by the EU. It is not any sort of fine or extra payment for us to leave. It will take the two years as we know and some of that figure will be that money and some will be the figure to the end of the 7 year agreement - (2020 or 2021 - maybe someone knows the exact date).
There is also an agreement to be made for the payment of pensions to UK MEPs and Civil Servants who have been working in Brussels on behalf of the U.K. Is anyone suggesting that we should not pay our contracts or the pension payments for these people? How would we react if it was a company doing this - there was a huge uproar about Maxwell and his raiding of the pension pot!
No one knew exactly what the outcome would be but we had a better idea of what the Remain vote meant - the status Quo - whereas the leave result was and is still a complete unknown - except that now some of the movement of companies has started to happen and also the decision of many Eu nationals to leave important jobs in the Uk and return to the Continent. There were insufficient people to pick the fruit in Kent this summer and much was left to rot.

The position we gave up some forty years ago is ready for us to reclaim - the sick man of Europe!

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/brexit-and-financial-services

Worth reading.

The Prime Minister has said that this government will honour commitments the UK has made during the period of our membership.

The figures being bandied about come from a range of different sources and many are speculative. Full Fact give a rundown here.

The only problem with another binding referendum humptydumpty is that David Cameron, with the consent of all sides of the H of C, said quite categorically, that he/they would 'abide by the referendum, whatever the result, under a first past the post system. Foolish I agree, but impossible to row back on. He said lots of other foolish things too!!

paddyann your friend sounds pretty bigoted herself.

Lawyers working for our government should be able to work out what we owe to the EU, what we had agreed to and so on.It is highly unlikely to be 89 billion.?