I also wish Mrs. May well. She appears to be trying to balance an eel (several of them really) on the end of her nose. If the Brits can wiggle their way out of their Brexit conundrum, my esteem for them will increase, but only slightly. They are still second class to the USA.

You think that? Look what you are about doing:




Worse haircut than any of the brexiters.

I don't know why everyone here is banging on about a Norway-type relationship when David Davis's preference is for the Canada Ceta deal:

"Davis argues the Swiss option – European Free Trade Association membership plus a host of bilateral treaties – is the best starting place. But he also acknowledges that in Switzerland problems have developed due to the EU insistence on Switzerland accepting free movement.

He says instead the best model is the Canadian Ceta deal that the EU has just struck. “It eliminates all customs duties, which the EU website excitedly describes as worth €470m (£395m) a year to EU business. A similar deal with Britain would save it five times that on cars alone. This would be a perfectly good starting point for our discussions with the commission.”"

but

"if the EU slapped tariffs on the UK, a Conservative government could retaliate by putting tariffs on EU products and use the revenue to invest in British industry."

Oh dear.

His preferred model is the recently struck Canadian comprehensive and economic trade agreement (Ceta)

military coup underway in turkey (just days away from entering the eu!) and the lira falls 5%. boris did twice that just for the fun of it.

Ceta isn't approved yet and it is not even save that it ever will.

That doesnt even make sense. Because of the lower productivity the exports are lower than competitors outside the EU. So to improve produtivity he can either improve use of machinery, be more efficient with the resources or change something about the labour input. Well not sure how he can blame the EU for that since other countries within the EU have a better productivity. Isn't it possible that the UK lost a step in manufacturing? Does that mean he wants to compete with labour costs of the outsiders?

nice easy week for boris to get his feet wet

day 1: terror attack in france, 80+ dead
day 2: coup in turkey
day 3: ??????????

Beg EU for help

I'm sure Boris will be pleased with what's happening Turkey. He's made it pretty clear he's not a fan of Erdoğan.

Boris Johnson wins 'most offensive Erdoğan poem' competition

and people said our Boris had no power!

On Point: Theresa May Takes Charge of the United Kingdom

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2016/07/...ervative-party

Some interesting comments and perspectives on your new Prime Minister and the challenges she faces.

The (UK) Independent: Theresa May Will Fall On Her Brexit-Lite Sword Within a Year ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...-a7132571.html

OK, chez, Jal, BAIDS, Phill, et al. What do you chaps make of this article? Do you agree with the article's main point - i.e. that Mrs. May will not survive Brexit? To a "Yank" from across the pond, the comments attached to this article are fascinating. The comments are all over the place. That suggests (to me) that nobody knows how this is going to play out. As for Mrs. May herself, I suspect she is not as clueless and out-of-touch-with-reality as the article seems to imply.

Not a chance. I believe you are correct in your suspicions.

I feel uncomfortable everytime I see him making comments about the **** thats been happening this week, its like he is struggling to find something decent to say or like he needs to think twice incase he says something dumb... again -_-

Wasnt a fan of him getting pulled back onto the front line of politics after him kinda silently disappearing off the stage but this might be a decent learning curve for him.

boris cant start kvetching about a deal that he and david davis are in charge of

boris: this deal is terrible!
everyone: erm you were in charge of it m8

so the only way to do it would be to resign at an opportune time and claim that may is interfering with brexit negotations, and thus trigger a leadership vote

problem for boris: we're going to watch the labour party tear itself several new arseholes in the coming months. its going to be horrible. this plus the gove nonsense = i think the appetite among conservative MPs & members for similar shenanigans in their own party will be somewhere between 0 and negative 200 for the foreseeable future

He may just declare war on Russia by accident.

BAIDS:

A comment I heard in the "On Point" podcast was that, long term, Britain could wind up better off out of the EU, but short term - say the next 2-4 years - things could get comparatively worse. (The commentator speculated that a recession in the UK is a virtual certainty in the next two years, assuming a full EU exit.)

This is an area where I'm not clear on how you do things over in the UK, but my understanding is that Mrs. May has a five-year term of office beginning on the day she received permission from Queen Elizabeth to form her Government, so [technically] she can wait until July 13, 2021 before she has to face her constituents again. Is that correct?

If Mrs. May doesn't have to call an election for five years, why wouldn't she go ahead and proceed with Brexit, weather the 2-3 years of stormy seas, and hope the economy has "adjusted" and is picking up steam by the time 2021 rolls around? (That's how Presidents try to do it over here. If their economic advisers are telling them that a recession is likely sometime in the near future, they try to get it over with as early in their term as possible.) Can a "snap election" be called in the UK simply because the economy has gone into recession?

Less - we vote for a government, not a PM - She's got a maximum of 5 years since Cameron won the last election.

Right now snap elections are not possible, due to the Fixed-Term Parliament act which was brought in under the last (coalition) government. It exists to make sure the Conservatives couldn't screw the Lib-Dems (other part of the coalition) out of power as soon as they thought they could win a majority. Now the Cons have a majority, they could repeal that (requires a 50%+1 vote in parliament) and call a snap election pretty quick if May was confident in winning to ensure another 5 year term - but the time for that was now, I imagine this government will run it's course.

Also, 2-3 years is WAY on the low side for estimates to "ride out the storm". 3 years time we may just have completed article 50 procedures, and likely the real recession begins as we have no trade agreements with anyone lol.

It's very hard for a PM to repeal the new 5 year term rule without it appearing as obviously opportunistic as it clearly is, which might play badly with the electorate.

Doesn't have to repeal it. Very hard for the opposition to not support a vote for an early general election - they are more likely to be demanding it.

Wow! Government and the practice of politics in the UK is ... interesting. (Certainly different from how we do things over here in the U.S.)

I think the one thing a lot of Americans like about the UK is the monarchy and (especially) Queen Elizabeth. I sense that the institution of the monarchy is controversial (by some) in the UK, but people over here - especially older people - love the Queen. (Of course, I love Larry the Cat, the Chief Mouser.)

I'm a big Shakespeare fan. I have dozens of Shakespeare books. (I've been looking for a copy of:

Mr. William Shakespeare's

Comedies,
Histories, &
Tragedies.

Published according to the True Original Copies.

[Portrait of Mr. Shakespeare.]

LONDON

Printed by Ifaac Iaggard, and Ed. Blount, 1623

If any of you just happen to have a copy of the 1623 edition laying around collecting dust, I'll be happy to pay you top dollar (top pound?) for the book - say $100.00?

UK offered Brexit free trade deal with Australia

From above link:


Australia has called for a free trade deal with Britain following its exit from the European Union.

Theresa May described the move as "very encouraging" and insisted it showed Brexit could work for Britain.

In a phone call to the new PM, her Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull said he urgently wanted to open up trading between the two countries.

Liam Fox, the new international trade secretary, said he was already "scoping about a dozen free trade deals".

But the UK cannot sign any deals while it is still an EU member - and experts warned trade deals take a long time to negotiate.

Mrs May said: "I have been very clear that this government will make a success of our exit from the European Union.

"One of the ways we will do this is by embracing the opportunities to strike free trade deals with our partners across the globe. It is very encouraging that one of our closest international partners is already seeking to establish just such a deal."

"This shows that we can make Brexit work for Britain," she added.

________________________________________________

Encouraging news? If so Mrs. May should invoke article 50 sooner, rather than later; to bolster negotiations in both directions - the exit and for new trade deals independently.

I read the above article and I'm wondering how much of a difference there might be between the current EU - Australia trade arrangements and a bi-lateral free trade agreement between the UK and Australia?

Its not like the trade is starting from scratch - 'in 2014 Australia exported A$8.3bn (£4.5bn) to the UK in 2014 and imported A$12.4bn (£6.5bn).'

Some guy in WSOPME 2016 THREAD IN NVG, lOl.

@Alan,

The key thing to understand is that in Britain and probably most countries, the government is whoever can command a majority in parliament, sometimes directly tested by a vote of confidence and sometimes implied by the result of an election. The leader of the party with an overall majority in parliament, (or the leader of the larger of a group of parties working together as a coalition) is asked by the queen, king or ceremonial president (in republics which have this system) to form a government and that person becomes prime minister (or chancellor in the case of Germany).

So we have less separation of powers - the legislature nominates the executive branch of government, but on the other hand we do have a separation of role of head of state and head of government.

In terms of your question, Theresa May is PM as she is leader of the party which has a majority in the House of Commons. It's the 2015-2020 parliament that comes up for reelection in 2020, and the mere fact that it has changed its mind about who it wants to be PM doesn't extend it. There are some possibilities to hold an election earlier than 2020, but its designed to be difficult (compared to the previous situation where the PM would tactically choose the election date any time 0-5 years after the last one - often after 4 years if they thought they could win and book another term) and its not clear to me at least why she would want to.

Zeno:

A nation that produced the greatest writer and playwright the world has ever known, (i.e. William Shakespeare), can never be thought of as second class.