VIDEO BELOW (text provided for those who prefer to read)
The Brexit secretary, David Davis is sending hundreds of civil servants over to Brussels to thrash out a 'big bang' Brexit deal.
The UK will be sending hundreds of select officials over to the EU to take part in the next phase of talks after the Brexit secretary, David Davis, won a Whitehall battle with Theresa May's Brexit negotiator, Oliver Robins.
The Times reports that the already rocky relations between Davis and Robbins has worsened since the decision, as Mr Robbins didn't want a big bang deal, he wanted to have a high level agreement with the EU agreeing the principles with the detail to come after Brexit Day on 29th march 2019. He had even delayed sending out a letter to officials that the Brexit Secretary wanted sent.
But it seems that David Davis is determined to take the bull by the horns. Let's hope he gets on with it.
The London City Airport Chief Executive, Robert Sinclair, says he is increasingly confident that an aviation deal will be struck in time for Brexit. Talking to CityAM, he said:
"….I think the industry and governments on both side of the Channel are prioritising aviation and a seamless aviation market."
and added
"March 2019 is the goal but is is still not 100 per cent clear …. the sooner there is certainty the better."
'Brexit is sad and has sometimes made me furious' – says the president of the EU Council, Donald Tusk. You didn't think I'd say that did you?
He also said that Brexit was making him divert his attention from more European integration into the task of damage control trying to avert disintegration.
While at the University College Dublin Law Society receiving his honorary lifetime membership he told the audience:
"I don’t like Brexit. Actually, that’s an understatement. I believe Brexit is one of the saddest moments in 21st century European history – in fact, sometimes I am even furious about it."
How can he be 'furious' at democracy? Unless it means that democracy has got in the way of his grand plans that is! And that's exactly what the EU means – more EU ideology and less democracy all round.
And he's not the only one 'sad' at Brexit. Tracy Emin has said her latest piece of art hanging in London's St Pancras Station has a subliminal anti-Brexit message.
"I’m deeply saddened that within a year Britain is going to be demoted to being a tiny little island floating around in the North Sea." She said.
Shows how little she knows about the UK then. And I'm sorry (no I'm not) to say that a neon sign simply saying 'I want my time with you' does not constitute art!
Now, taking aim at the Brexit vision of divergence of law, the Confederation of British Industry is now saying that a so-called 'bonfire of the rules' will mean more cost than benefit to British businesses.
In its report called 'Smooth Operations' the CBI boss Carolyn Fairbairn said that the government should prioritise evidence over ideology in negotiations for a new UK/EU trade deal.
"Put simply," she said "for the majority of businesses, diverging from EU rules and regulations will make them less globally competitive, and so should only be done where the evidence is clear that the benefits outweigh the costs."
Which is exactly why the government is planning to transpose the whole of the Acquis Communautaire into UK law so that on day one of UK independence we are not hit by any shock.
The government can then via the accepted UK legislative system look to amend legislation at our own leisure as we go forward, in consultation with all stakeholders. No right minded government would impose laws on UK business to make it globally uncompetitive, quite the reverse – so Remainers can stop their fear mongering! And when I say 'right-minded' I mean sensible even though this phrase does rule out Corbyn's mob!
One thing does bother me with the CBI report though, it seems as if they think that the post Brexit relationship will be written in stone down to the last detail on rules and regulations – it won't, it will be formed so as to give the UK full sovereign capability to make its own laws to suit us into the future.
The divergence the UK needs is not an instantaneous re-writing of everything just for the sake of it – it means amending as and when we require it to be amended and sometimes it will dovetail in with the EU and in others it will not, but it will be our decision to make. Rules will be put on the bonfire as and when it suits the UK.
The CBI does of course want things to stay just as they are for its big business members.
As the co-chair of Leave Means Leave, Richard Tice, said:
"This report from the CBI protects the vested interests of global multi-nationals at the expense of the approximately 90% of the UK economy that does not export to the EU.
"It is quite extraordinary that this business lobby group wants to keep a load of unnecessary EU regulations that stifle growth and innovation, which will thus reduce wage growth potential for UK workers."
And Michel Barnier yesterday demanded that the UK sign up to a 'non-regression clause' to try and lock us into the EU rules for ever more, even to the extent of following EU tax laws.
This is another completely unworkable and thoroughly unacceptable demand from a bloc that is desperate to control a newly free UK. It should be dismissed out of hand.
No to all these restriction. the UK government must be free to make and change laws for the benefit of the UK and that will mean diverging from EU laws where necessary.
As Christian May writes in CityAM:
"Far from staying fully aligned with EU laws and regulation, MPs and Whitehall departments should be undertaking a forensic review of what works, what doesn’t and what can be improved."
Finally, I expect you've heard about the 'Museum of Brexit' project to commemorate the UK's historic decision to leave the EU.
But I have a better idea.
What we need is a 'Lost Decades of EU Membership – Chamber of Horrors' – pity Madame Tussaud's shut theirs down, it would have slotted in very nicely.
You enter under the watchful gaze of 'those that know better than you' wax figures of the likes of Heath and Blair and follow the One-Way signs where you find depictions of small business men being tortured under the weight of EU legislation being piled on them by manically grinning eurocrats.
At every turn there is an EU slot machine where to progress on it demands ever more money and will only give you half of it back at most as long as you thank it profusely and promise to tell everyone for ever more what a wonderful machine it is.
You get the idea.
And at the end you come to a no exit sign and just as you turn around the door is banged shut and you are locked in forever, forced to work and pay for whatever meagre fare you are given. Above you and just out of reach to so you can't tear it down is a Tracy Emin pro-EU work of so-called art to torture you eternally. And you look out of the little cell window and all you can see is the rest of the world going about its business without you.
