EU states could refuse to approve a trade deal with the UK

[sasguru]

Within the building trade? I don't have enough spare time to go through even 5% of it.

Funny that, there has been lots of documentation about the shoddy state of British new-builds in recent years.
Being an ex- BTLer, I've had experience of this in the not too distant past.
And I travel extensively - Northern Europe definitely has higher standards of building than the UK.
The US is the same shoddy stuff as the UK unless you go top end, same as Southern Europe.

So maybe the quality of the fixtures and fittings is high but the level of build in terms of e.g. sound proofing is piss poor.

[sasguru]

I know a little while back the UK was seen as the Jeweled Isle by EU car makers, good place to make money.

Of course it is, this (and the US) is the only country where an unemployed council tenant can drive a new Mercedes.

Bad credit car finance: details of defaults on subprime car loans should be published | Auto Express

[BrilloPad]

Of course it is, this (and the US) is the only country where an unemployed council tenant can drive a new Mercedes.

Bad credit car finance: details of defaults on subprime car loans should be published | Auto Express

If they don't pay then the car is immobilized. So they have to do enough drug deals.....

[tomtomagain]

Is that all? Up to 3 years here for either mother or father...

And yet the Germans still don't have enough children to stop their population decreasing. Luckily they found another solution.

[BlasterBates]

I know a little while back the UK was seen as the Jeweled Isle by EU car makers, good place to make money.

Even with huge barriers up the Germans will be able to sell their stuff to the UK. People who buy high end Mercedes don't give a monkeys about a 9% tariff, these people are rich, and in any case they would easily simply build factories for the UK markets. Now the "whoopee" I hear will be misplaced because if they did that it wouldn't replace the thousands of jobs lost at Japanese factories producing for the EU market, it would simply be a small assembly plant with a couple of hundred workers and a lot of robots, manufactured in Germany.

The other thing is that 50% of all goods coming into the UK come from the EU so hiking up tariffs would kill consumer spending and they can't simply drop tariffs elsewhere to compensate because WTO rules forbid it. The WTO favours unfair competition from trading blocks, i.e. you join a trading block or die, so is the modern WTO driven world. Every OECD country is a member of a trading block. No country in the world relies exclusively on WTO conditions putting the UK slightly above North Korea in terms of market access.

All in all the UK is going to get really stuffed in the trade negotiations.

[sasguru]

People who high end Mercedes don't give a monkeys about a 9% tariff

Quite if it stops the hoi polloi being able to afford expensive cars, I'm all for it

[Bee]

They can, obviously.

But a better question is, why on earth would they? That is in nobody's best interests, and when it all comes down to it, it is "mutual best interests" that will decide all of this.

Taking the assumption that EU should accept any crap proposal just to ensure the trade deal you are wrong. Unfortunately hard Brexit for sure.

[RetSet]

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has said EU states could refuse to approve a trade deal with the UK unless the government gives assurances that it will not use Brexit to deregulate and lower standards. He made the comment in meeting with peers last week, the transcript of which has just been published. (See 5.17pm.)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-politics-live

Obviously necessary position - nobody in EU can allow free trade black hole with state that would lower overall standards

So tell 'em all to Effoff, we'll go for Hard Brexit and see how long the EU survives with a massive reduction in its net income.

Then maybe we can get round the table with our fellow Europeans and put together some kind of European Economic Community...

Oh...

My parents voted for one of those in the 1970's ...

[NotAllThere]

So tell 'em all to Effoff, we'll go for Hard Brexit and see how long the EU survives with a massive reduction in its net income.

I'm sure the EU is quaking in its boots over that scenario.

[BrilloPad]

I'm sure the EU is quaking in its boots over that scenario.

When UK makes a success of it, it will be the end of the gravy train.