Brexit negotiations

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

[LustyLew]

Neither side will be happy, whatever the outcome.

Any deal made will need to see us worse off otherwise it wont be ratified by the EU27. Any deal that attempts to keep the UK economy in alignment with the EU will piss off the gammons like Boris and it'll be thrown out in Parliament.

I foresee a no deal and a few years of hardship...

Of course, the clever thing to have done would be the EU states actually set out what article 50 meant in the first place. Would have saved all sorts of ball ache.

The referendum should have been three options.

Stay
Leave
Leave with the ties like Norway

Then everyone could have actually known what to expect. the Stay/Leave argument was far too wishy washy in t he first place.

[Riejufixing]

[Val]

Actual picture of Theresa May blaming EU today for her incompetence: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-brexit-no-deal-eu-leaders-citizens-uk-second-referendum-a8548776.html

https://i.imgur.com/arlp9nd.jpg

How it is an EU fault the UK has a toddler for a PM?

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

So why did Barnier et al say they were prepared to be flexible before the Salzburg meeting and then totally dismiss the PM without offering a revised version of her proposal, with no interest in a negotiation? They're not interested and we're going out without a deal. So be it.

[Val]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1043257360062414848/video/1

[Itchy]

David Davis gave evidence to the Exiting the EU Select Committee in March, where he outlined what no-deal would mean with regard to air travel, amongst other things.(March 2017)

I’ll quote from the record of his oral evidence - his own words. This is what David Davis said.

The minutes of what he said are recorded here:

https://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/exiting-the-european-union-committee/the-uks-negotiating-objectives-for-its-withdrawal-from-the-eu/oral/48859.html

Everything below this point is verbatim.


No deal and tariffs

[Riejufixing]

It's not verbatim at all, you've edited it.

[Itchy]

[Ste]

[Itchy]

[Itchy]

HoC 85mm(Green).tif



Committee on Exiting the European Union

Oral evidence: The UK’s negotiating objectives for its withdrawal from the EU, HC 1072

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 15 March 2017



Watch the meeting

Members present: Hilary Benn (Chair); Alistair Burt; Mr Alistair Carmichael; Maria Caulfield; Joanna Cherry; Mark Durkan; Jonathan Edwards; Michael Gove; Peter Grant; Jeremy Lefroy; Mr Peter Lilley; Karl McCartney; Mr Pat McFadden; Craig Mackinlay; Seema Malhotra; Dominic Raab; Emma Reynolds; Stephen Timms; Mr John Whittingdale; Sammy Wilson.

Questions 1371‑1503

Witnesses

I: Rt Hon David Davis, Secretary of State for the Department for Exiting the European Union; and Olly Robbins, Permanent Secretary, Department for Exiting the EU.



Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Rt Hon David Davis and Olly Robbins.

Q1371 Chair: Good morning, Secretary of State. Good morning, Mr Robbins. Thank you very much for coming to give evidence before us today and thank you for your response to the Select Committee’s first report, which we received yesterday and which we will be publishing. We have a great deal of ground to cover this morning, as you would no doubt expect, so I would be grateful for short questions and answers as succinct as possible.

Mr Davis: I will try to break character, yes.

Q1372 Chair: It has been reported, Secretary of State, that you told the Cabinet that they should be prepared in case no deal is reached in the negotiations. I am not going to ask you what you did or did not say to your Cabinet colleagues, just to pre‑empt your response, but I want to begin by clarifying some very basic factual matters relating to what no deal—and by that I mean no agreement, no deal, no transitional arrangements—would mean for the United Kingdom. Can you just confirm that no deal would mean that British businesses would face tariffs and other non‑tariff barriers in their trade with the 27 member states of the EU? A simple yes or no will suffice.

Mr Davis: I am afraid that a simple yes or no does not actually do it, Mr Chairman. The presumption of no deal is literally that.

Chair: Sorry, could you just say that again?

Mr Davis: Can you hear me alright? That is fine. The presumption of no deal is literally that; it would be a presumption—and it is a presumption at this point—of most-favoured-nation status, under the World Trade Organization arrangements, which means there will be tariffs. It does not say very much about non‑tariff barriers, but the presumption you are making is probably right.

Q1373 Chair: There would be tariffs. That would mean, for example, UK producers of dairy and meat produce would be facing tariffs of 30% to 40%, and on cars it would be 10%. Is that correct?

Mr Davis: That is properly correct, but forgive me, Mr Chairman; I do not want to mislead the Committee by absence. The range of tariffs is from next to nothing, in fact nothing, right through to very high numbers on agriculture. You are quite right that the numbers on agriculture are high, because of the protectionist nature of the common agricultural policy.

Q1374 Chair: Can you confirm that it would mean that there would have to be customs checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, in those circumstances?

Mr Davis: There are already customs checks between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, because there are excise differences, but they are done in a very light way.

Q1375 Chair: Are you saying, Secretary of State, that there would be no change? Would there be a change?

Mr Davis: No, I am saying that there would be customs checks, but that does not mean that they will be heavy‑handed. Again, I would not want anybody to misunderstand what I say. That does not mean that we demur from our position of wanting to have a very light border, no hard border.

Q1376 Chair: Can you confirm it would mean that the United Kingdom would no longer be part of the US‑EU Open Skies Agreement?

Mr Davis: It would not be part of that agreement. One would presume that that would not apply to us. It does not say anything about whether there will be a successor.

Q1377 Chair: Right, but we would fall out of it. Can you confirm that it would mean the loss of passporting rights for the British financial services sector, on the day we come out of the single market?

Mr Davis: Again, as it currently exists, that would be the case. I would expect that to be the case but, when I said to you that I am not sure what the outcome on non‑tariff barriers would be, that is an area of uncertainty.

Q1378 Chair: Can you confirm that UK citizens would no longer have access to the EHIC health treatment card?

Mr Davis: I think that is probably right. I have not looked at that one.

Q1379 Chair: Thank you very much. Can you confirm that, in the absence of a data adequacy decision from the EU Commission, there would, at best, be legal uncertainty about the transfer of personal data between the United Kingdom and the EU?

Mr Davis: I am not sure about that. The issue there is that there are plenty of other states outside the EU that have data access and, for example, safe harbour characterisation. That has been robust, despite things like the Schrems court case. It is not quite as clear as that, but it is one of the issues we have to deal with.

Q1380 Chair: When we met the tech sector it was certainly top of their list, because they said that they would be very anxious without it. Can you tell the Committee whether the Government have undertaken an economic assessment of the implications for the British economy and for British businesses of there being no deal?

Mr Davis: It made an estimate during the leave campaign or the referendum campaign, but one of the issues that has arisen is that those forecasts do not appear to have exactly been very robust since then. If you mean under my time, the answer is no.

Q1381 Chair: You did say on television on Sunday, I think I am right in saying, that you were preparing for all eventualities. Clearly no deal is one of the eventualities if what it is reported you told the Cabinet is correct. You are saying that there has been no further assessment of the implications of no deal at all since before the referendum. Is that correct?

Mr Davis: No, that is not correct. You are putting words in my mouth, Mr Chairman.

Chair: No, no, no. I thought that you had said you had done nothing further.

Mr Davis: Yes, you are and you are also asking me, by inference, to comment on the Cabinet discussion. Let me put you out of your misery on the Cabinet discussion: yes, I did brief the Cabinet in terms of what we have to do. This is part of an ongoing process that started last year. It is rigorous across every single department of state—every single one. It ranges from customs, as you mentioned, through to agriculture and what we do there, through to nuclear safety. Every single department of state has an effect there. One of the difficulties about your style of yes/no answers to questions is that you do not deal with what we can do to mitigate, and much of this is about mitigation. Any forecast that you make depends on the mitigation that you undertake and, as a result, it is rather otiose to do the forecast before you have concluded what mitigation is possible.

Chair: Indeed, we will no doubt come on to that. I am grateful for your advice on my style of questioning.

Mr Davis: Mr Chairman, of course you have been a Cabinet Minister before and I have been a Select Committee Chairman before. I am sure we can exchange all sorts of wisdom.

Chair: We have not even mentioned the word “experts” yet.

Mr Davis: I was going to leave that to Mr Gove.

Q1382 Chair: Can I just be absolutely clear? Has there been any assessment since the referendum? I understood you to have said a moment ago that you had not done anything further on the implications of no deal, but you have said publicly that you are preparing for all eventualities.

Mr Davis: Yes, that is right.

Q1383 Chair: Has there been a further assessment of the implications of no deal since 23 June last year?

Mr Davis: There has not been one that would be to my satisfaction. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Chair: The answer is no, there has not been.

Mr Davis: Let me give you a proper answer, Mr Chairman. One way of assessing this is to build an economic model, which makes all sorts of assumptions and then projects the outcome. I cannot remember which member of the Bank of England it was who said that economic model builders had had a Michael Fish moment. The point of the issue is here: we need to make assessments not just of the whole economy, but of the effects on components of the economy. To take your example on customs, one of the concerns from some companies—and it does vary—is not so much the tariff as the delays on customs going through that make the issue. You highlighted the point of the Northern Irish border, which is a special case of that.

There are various ways of dealing with that. Not all of it is about new software systems or new inspection systems. Let me give you a single example. In current arrangements with customs, there is something known colloquially as trusted traders. In Treasury speak, I think they are called authorised economic operators. An authorised economic operator has a special relationship with HMRC, whereby they have electronic notification. We are talking about a number of companies that account for either 60% of our exports and 74% of our imports or the other way round, but it is significant anyway; it is nearly two-thirds of our international trade. For those operators, the clearance of 92% of their cross‑border traffic takes five seconds. The remaining 8% are things where the customs notifies them will require an inspection.

We have discussed this, or at least one of my Ministers has discussed this, with the British Chambers of Commerce. The question here is if we can extend the AEOs and the trusted trader structure to much smaller companies. Can we change the rate? Until you have an answer to that, the assessment of the economic impact of these customs is not possible to calculate. The simple truth is that you have to do this in sequence. I am forever facing questions in this process saying, “Have you done this yet?” No, we will do it when we have the information. We will do it when we have the facts. We can make the same arguments about agriculture. In those circumstances, there will be a tariff structure. It is one of the reasons we are trying to avoid it. There will also be, because it is much more of an issue, phytosanitary checks. They are there already, so it may not be a change for them, and ditto for banking and so on. All of these things are being done piece by piece. When we have finished making the Lego blocks, we will build the house, and then we will have the forecast you are talking about.

Chair: Indeed, and you have moved on to the ways in which you would seek to mitigate the impact of there being no deal.

Mr Davis: I am not challenging your argument.

Q1384 Chair: I am just going to finish on the point about no deal. You are saying that you have not done a further assessment. You have confirmed to the Committee this morning that: no deal would mean tariffs and non‑tariff barriers, and the level of tariffs in the case of the two examples I gave; there would need to be further checks across the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic; we would no longer be a part of the EU‑US Open Skies Agreement; passporting rights would be lost; UK citizens may well lose their EHIC cards; and there is uncertainty about data adequacy. Given that, I have a very simple question. Do you think that leaving with no deal would be a bad outcome for the United Kingdom?

Mr Davis: I think I have effectively given you the answer at this stage.

Q1385 Chair: What is it?

Mr Davis: Let me answer it properly, Mr Chairman. I have just said to you that, at this stage, until we have worked out all the mitigation procedures, we could not quantify the outcome. You have not asked me about the upsides, by the way. The fact is that, for roughly 60% of our trade, we could relax these things the other way, whereas this is referring to 40% of our trade.

The other thing I would say to you is that the Prime Minister said, in terms, that no deal is better than a bad deal. Why did she say that? She said that because, in the emotional aftermath of the referendum, there were lots of threats of punishment deals and all the rest of it. Let me be clear that we could manage this in such a way as to be better than a bad deal, and that is true. I cannot quantify it for you in detail yet. I may well be able to do so in about a year’s time, but it is certainly the case. Frankly, Mr Chairman, it is not as frightening as some people think, but it is not as simple as some people think.

Q1386 Chair: I was not asking whether it was frightening. I was asking whether you personally, given the job that you have, would regard no deal as a bad outcome for the United Kingdom.

Mr Davis: It is not as good an outcome as a free‑trade friction‑free open agreement, which is why we are trying for it.

Q1387 Chair: Right. We now have the International Trade Secretary saying it would be an outcome that would be bad. We have you saying it would be not as good as, and we have the Foreign Secretary saying it would be perfectly okay. That does cause a certain amount of puzzlement, I must say. I am presuming from what you are saying that you do not regard it as perfectly okay.

Mr Davis: Mr Chairman, you are making rhetorical points. I will respond to it. I do my job on the basis of facts and data and research and analysis and operational planning. Off the back of that, I will give answers that are accurate and that are factual, not throwaway lines in an interview—factual answers. That is what I intend to do today.

Q1388 Mr Carmichael: Do your colleagues not do the same?

Mr Davis: I am sure they do. Why do you not ask them here and ask them?

Chair: Perhaps you should do all the interviews on this subject, rather than some of your Cabinet colleagues. That might be one way around it.

Q1389 Emma Reynolds: Good morning. When you came before us in December, you said that you were still thinking about whether the letter to trigger Article 50 would be a short one or a long one, and that you had not yet decided. Now that you have had time to think about it and there is probably a draft in existence, I would hope, can you tell us whether it will be a short or a long letter?

Mr Davis: It will be for the Prime Minister to tell the House at the appropriate time. I am not going to tell you what is in the letter.

Emma Reynolds: Okay, so you will not answer the question.

Mr Davis: I will leave it at that.

Q1390 Emma Reynolds: You will leave it at that. Is there a reason for the two‑week delay, given that neither Number 10 nor your department dampened down speculation over the weekend that the letter would be released this week?

Mr Davis: Will the letter be released this week? We are not the source of that guesswork. The truth is, I think I am right in saying, that we are expecting royal assent tomorrow, so it could not have been done today anyway and why rush? Why rush from that? My department is not the source of that guesswork. It is not the first bit of guesswork. The earlier one was the 9th and the earlier before that was the 5th, which was totally impossible under the parliamentary timetable.

Q1391 Emma Reynolds: Will the letter go beyond the objectives? You said in December that the letter would focus on objectives. Will the letter go beyond the detail of the objectives set out in the White Paper and the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech?

Mr Davis: Ms Reynolds, I am literally not going to detail the letter for you. That is for the Prime Minister to do at the right time.

Q1392 Emma Reynolds: Can we turn to timing and so‑called transitional arrangements? Many of the witnesses that we have had before our Committee and many leading business organisations, including the Institute of Directors recently, have spoken of the need for a transition period, and the Mayor of London did so yesterday, in order to provide businesses with certainty at that stage. The Government have not really agreed to this, have they? What they mean by that is a time‑limited period after we leave in case there is no deal in place. What the Government have talked about is implementation or a phased‑in approach. Can you confirm that those two things are different?

Mr Davis: When I was here last, we talked about this at very great length and I made the point that we needed to distinguish between the range of views of what a transition arrangement means, which is why we used “implementation period” as a better phrase. The range of views, just to remind you, range from the views taken by some members of the Commission that we will do the “divorce”, the departure deal, and then after that have a transitional arrangement while we are still paying money and there is still the free movement of people. There are all of these things going on and we will do the long‑term deal in slow motion. That is plainly not what we are after. That is the first thing to say.

Other people are vague about transition arrangements. I was not here for your discussions with the IoD, so I do not know precisely what they said to you, but let me give you one example of it. One example is that many banking structures and many of the financial services structures want to have time from the point at which they know what the outcome is to the point at which it takes effect, so that they can then do their planning on facts, not fears. I understand that, but we are talking about something that is a negotiation and the negotiation has not yet started. What we do have around Europe among member states is an understanding that we are going to need some time to put into effect whatever it is that we agree afterwards.

Last time, I resisted being drawn on what that—I do not like “transition arrangements”—implementation phase would be for a very simple reason. What the implementation phase needs to be is dependent on what the final outcome is—what the end structure is. If it is very similar to now, and arguably a comprehensive free trade agreement would be quite similar to the effect in terms of accessing the single market, then less transition is required. If it is a big difference, more transition is required. As I say, we have not started the negotiation. I would rather not try to initiate the negotiation through this Committee.

Q1393 Emma Reynolds: It is still the case at the start of negotiations, as far as we are aware, that neither the EU‑27 nor the Commission and Michel Barnier have agreed that these negotiations will take place in parallel. Is that the case?

Mr Davis: That is the case, at the moment. That is right.

Q1394 Emma Reynolds: Even though the Government want to conclude both Article 50 and a free trade agreement within two years, and all the other things like justice and home affairs, there is still a risk that our future relationship negotiation will endure for longer than the two years, past March 2019. There is still a risk of that, is there not?

Mr Davis: I did not write the Article 50 guidelines, but they say, in effect, that at the end of two years you are not a member of the European Union anymore, unless you negotiated something different. There is a fixed timeline on that. In the British national interest and the British Government interest, it is sensible to achieve the decisions by the end of the two‑year period, from a negotiating point of view, but also from an intelligent management point of view. That is what we intend. You are right that the first formal conversation between Michel and me will almost certainly be about this subject.

Q1395 Emma Reynolds: But there is still a risk that this could take longer than two years, because no other country around the world has managed to agree a free trade agreement with the EU within that period.

Mr Davis: It is very interesting. Let me say this. Karel De Gucht, who used to be the Trade Commissioner, is not a fan of Brexit and is a critic of Brexit, said in terms that this could take a long time, but it does not need to. It is not a technical constraint; it is a question of political will. Why did he say that? This is not like CETA and so on. We start from the position where we have identical product standards, identical regulatory standards and so on. As you know from the last time I appeared here, the Great Repeal Bill will ensure that we are at that stage at the moment we leave.

Q1396 Emma Reynolds: At day one that is fine, but regulatory divergence will kick in. When you campaigned to leave the EU, you campaigned to take back control of regulation. Regulation can differ in 50 days.

Mr Davis: There is a big difference. With respect, Ms Reynolds, there is a big difference between doing what you need to do to keep regulations aside. That is a much more complex issue than people realise, because not all of our regulatory identity is dependent on European Union organisations. Sometimes it is based on European organisations that are not members of the Union. That is the first thing.

The second thing is that, when two countries come together to arrange a trading arrangement between themselves, the first stage is to be able to understand each other’s’ structures and standards, so that takes time too. None of that do we have to do. Neither do we need an entry‑into‑force period, which is the other issue that takes time in these things. It is not just the sign‑off; it is the actual period of industry coming to meet the new standards. That is the first thing.

The second thing is this. This has been reflected back to me in my discussions with other member states, but also to other of my colleagues. They want to see a constructive outcome, which we interpret to be a deal, and the reason they want to see a constructive outcome is because they have trading arrangements with us already. There is a strong vested interest on both sides of this negotiation to actually get an outcome. That is not the position you have when you are starting a free trade deal from nowhere. This deal is unique and the approach we have taken to it is unique too. One of the reasons we have taken an overarching, comprehensive free trade agreement approach to this is because it is simpler to do than the way they normally do free trade agreements. If you go and look at the history of the CETA deal, there is analysis sector by sector by sector by sector, and sector‑by‑sector negotiations. Each of those takes time. We are trying to get around that.

Q1397 Emma Reynolds: On the substance rather than the timing, it is the case that we and the Government are seeking a deal that is more ambitious than CETA, I am hoping.

Mr Davis: I think that is right. I think that is fair.

Q1398 Emma Reynolds: The decision‑making procedure that governs CETA is due to a mixed agreement and therefore requires unanimity in the Council and ratification of what will be 37 rather than 38 national parliaments and regional parliaments of the EU‑27. Such a procedure is likely to apply to our free trade agreement, will it not, if it is going to be more ambitious and more comprehensive than CETA?

Mr Davis: This is a matter that changes as we go, because of the Singapore case that has happened on this. That may well be the case. We simply do not know at this stage. It will depend on the structure of the negotiations. Another of one of the early things that I will need to talk to Michel about is how we structure this. If we structure it as one big package deal, then I suspect it will have to go through mixed agreement. It may be structured as separate deals. We do not know.

Emma Reynolds: We may well need ratification of all of those parliaments.

Mr Davis: We may, but I reiterate the point that I made at the beginning or in the last round of answers to this. Bear in mind that every country we deal with will have an interest. They have an established interest, not the interest we have with CETA, which is future business. Future business is never as attractive as defending your current business.

Q1399 Mr Lilley: I want to revert to the transitional agreement idea. I entirely take your point about implementation. When we joined in 1973, we had four years when our tariffs moved to converge with and become identical to the common external tariff. That was a sort of implementation process. In what circumstances would there need to be a transition? I do not know what a transition involves; I have been trying to find out from the Mayor of London and the Institute of Directors without any great success. Have you managed to find out what contents people want in a transitional agreement, as against an implementation period?

Mr Davis: You make a good point, Mr Lilley. We have been talking to people about what they would want out of these things and it does vary. Every single person wants something different. That is part of the issue. This is why I say that what we need to do is first work out what the end state will be and then work out whether there is a need, whether there is a disruptive effect of some sort in the change, and whether there is a need to allow people to accommodate to that. That is one part of it. When I talk about the implementation stage or implementation phase, it is the Government implementation. It may also be corporate implementation as well. We may need to think this through. Bear in mind again, as I keep reiterating to the Committee—the Committee quite reasonably asked me for hard answers—that starting a negotiation is sometimes hard to do. It will be on both sides’ interest to make sure that there is a smooth and orderly transition to the new state, and we will try to do that on an industry‑by‑industry basis, if need be. Again, that is contingent on the Commission’s agreement and, more importantly, the Council’s agreement.

Q1400 Mr Lilley: Just taking tariffs first, you would agree that, if we start with zero tariffs and end with zero tariffs, it is hard to think of any transitional arrangements that would be needed or even theoretically possible.

Mr Davis: Yes. There may be issues relating to rules of origin, let us say. You could give me tutorials on this, but let me go through it anyway. If we get what we are aiming for, in terms of an overarching free trade agreement, we cannot become an entrepôt for people to go through the European common external tariff barriers or be a loophole. We will almost certainly have to have rules‑of‑origin arrangements and there will be some sort of inspection arrangement to go with that. As I was saying before about trusted traders, that might be an electronic arrangement. I could imagine even that circumstance. We have not looked at that in detail yet, but I could imagine it. I am trying to think what the worst case in this context is, as we always do here. That is about the size of it. You are quite right that it is not very much of a transition. You might be able to do that in months.

Q1401 Mr Lilley: What about as far as non‑tariff barriers are concerned?

Mr Davis: That is more of an issue, I think.

Q1402 Mr Lilley: As far as the regulation and standards are concerned, we start with identity and we hope to continue with identity. Therefore, there is no transition there.

Mr Davis: Or equivalence.

Q1403 Mr Lilley: Equivalence, yes, but we start with identity. On day one after Brexit, we would be where we were on day one before, or minus one. The only thing that we would have to negotiate or the principal thing that we would have to negotiate would be some system where one side or other challenges the other that something they have done diverges from identity or equivalence. That is what we would have to negotiate. Again, how could there be any transition for that? You would have to negotiate it. You would not negotiate not to negotiate until later.

Mr Davis: You are reinforcing my point, Mr Lilley, that the end state determines the transition. If the end state is near identical, then no transition is necessary. This is one of the reasons that there have been people who have argued that you must start by getting the transition state established. You cannot. It is logically impossible. That is the point I was making to the Chairman earlier. You have to get each step established first, and it may well be that, if we get a very good agreement, which is what we are aiming for, being ambitious about it, then there will not be an enormous need for transition. But we will see.

Q1404 Mr Lilley: Yesterday, we had the Mayor of London, who I have to say was impressive, pragmatic and positive, except when it came to this transitional deal. He could not tell us what he wanted in it. Reflecting afterwards, it struck me that, for some people, a transitional deal is just a way of saying, “Let’s put off leaving until after the next general election.” For others, it is simply a kind of displacement mechanism; it avoids having to think about what the end result is. Of course, you would logically have to know what the end result is if you were to negotiate. Do you have a similar impression about not everybody but some people who are floating the idea of transition?

Mr Davis: Can I start by saying, and I do not know if the Mayor told you, that I meet with him once a month to discuss these issues? The last one we had was on the issue of creative industries. This is all non‑regulated; it is all about country‑of‑origin status and so on. Generally speaking, from my point of view, the best answer in most cases, if not all cases, is to get something that does not require transition. Now we are where we are, nine months on from 23 June, more and more companies see that. Early on, bearing in mind the amount of propaganda that flew around from all sides at the time, people were afraid of what the changes might bring. You are right that there was a sort of: “Put it off, then we can plan for it when we come to it.”

That is not entirely irrational. It is not entirely irrational for a head of a big corporation to say, “Okay, you are going to change the environment in which I work. Please give me time to accommodate to it, even though I do not know what the change is.” People are bringing to think through this. In the City, I know they are beginning to think about how to manage for this either way. Last week, the head of Peugeot was saying that they can deal with what he called “hard Brexit”. You know I hate that term, but he said, “We can deal with that, with no deal and we can deal with a deal arrangement.” His answer, if you remember, was setting up supply chains inside the United Kingdom. What is happening over time is that people are thinking through their responses and, as they do that, the arguments about transition become more rational, more factual and narrower.

Q1405 Mr Lilley: I have one last point. To have a transitional agreement in general, you need to have decided what you are transitioning to.

Mr Davis: Yes.

Q1406 Dominic Raab: Good morning, Secretary of State. Good morning, Mr Robbins.

Mr Davis: I should let you do some work. He has not nudged me yet.

Q1407 Dominic Raab: One of the so‑called risks of the negotiations, whether there is a deal or no deal, is the impact of tariffs or any form of barrier on parts coming in and out of the manufacturing process that is conducted in the UK. It has been interesting, as we look at this substantial problem, to hear voices like James Dyson talk about what industry can do to mitigate that risk and build up a bit of self‑reliance in the UK. To what extent have civil servants or Ministers been talking to industry chiefs like James Dyson, and to what extent is there a collaborative approach to mitigating that particular risk?

Mr Davis: I was just looking to see if the Canadians are still here. I will explain why in a second. We have met with about 360 companies in the last nine months. I cannot remember how many roundtables we had, and this is one of the issues that comes up. There was a view that just‑in‑time manufacturing techniques were seriously handicapped by having to cross a border. The reason I was looking for the Canadians is that I used to operate across a border between America and Canada, with products that deteriorated very fast, so it was not the classical just-in-time. We had mechanisms for dealing with this. To come back to the issue of the trusted trader I was giving as an example to the Chairman earlier, there are methods of dealing with this, in terms of the relationship with the customs authorities and how they manage it.

For example, if you have an organisation, let us say, an aviation manufacturer, with hundreds of parts to make up one engine, aircraft or whatever, or a car manufacturer, there can be computerised manufacturing systems that pretty much trace all the parts. It is possible for them to have an arrangement with the customs authority that says that we know where they all come from. They will be audited from time to time. There may be the odd snap inspection but, generally speaking, you can get a fast transition across a border. That is the sort of thing we are looking at. Does that answer your question?

Q1408 Dominic Raab: It does. In particular, I was curious to know the extent to which there is some collaboration with industry on this. One of the answers could be the one you articulated; the other, a possibility or a combination of them could be to try to build up our self‑reliance in the production of at least some proportion of the parts that we need for some of these processes.

Mr Davis: That is right. In the event of our optimal outcome, the only thing that gets in the way is rules of origin. That is the thing you have to look for. You have to be able to turn around to the authorities in wherever you are exporting to, in this case the European Union, and say to them that we have hard evidence to give them satisfaction that all of this car, 80% of this car or whatever the agreed proportion is made from things brought from within the European Union. If not, these are they and this is what the tariff should be.

Q1409 Dominic Raab: I will come on to some of the opportunities, but the other risk that we are quite focused on is financial services, passporting and the like, whether the answer is passporting or regulatory equivalence. One of the interesting points made is the £1 trillion of UK finance going into European companies. My reading of some of the remarks from Michel Barnier, but also national industry bodies like the Association of German Banks, is that there is a far more emollient tone in relation to the City and UK‑based finance than perhaps before the referendum. I wondered whether you are picking that up as well, in terms of the prospects for a win‑win in relation to that or at least the avoidance of lose‑lose and a choking of UK‑based finance.

Mr Davis: It bounces up and down a bit but, generally speaking, there has been a progressive warming of the tone, I think. Up until Christmas, up until the Prime Minister’s speech in January, there were still people around Europe who basically did not think this would happen, so they were not focusing on it. The more they focus on what is necessary, the more they see that things like the German Mittelstand depends on a virtually infinite source of capital from the City of London, and that there are symbiotic relationships between Luxembourg financial services and London, and so on. There is a whole series of reasons why there is a tendency for it to get warmer, as you say.

Also bear in mind that Michel is characterised as some sort of bogeyman by the British press. He is a tough negotiator, but his last task in the Commission prior to this was on the financial services side. Before Jonathan Hill, he was the commissioner on financial services, so he understands the need to get this right and the danger to the whole entity from causing fractures.

Q1410 Dominic Raab: You mentioned that there was a dawning around January or February that Brexit is actually going to happen. We have heard some talk of the punishment or the price that must be paid, both on the continent and here. We have also increasingly heard voices here talk about avoiding that and searching for win‑win. I can think of comments made by the German finance minister and other comments from Berlin, from Madrid and also within Brussels. Are you detecting an attitudinal shift in a positive direction or will we ultimately have to wait to get down to brass tacks and negotiations, before that is likely to emerge? I am wondering the extent to which the national blood pressure needs to be braced for the continuation of the posturing via the press, on both sides I suppose, or the extent to which the negotiations have scope to build up a rather more positive spirit to them.

Mr Davis: That is an incredibly complex question to answer, because the dynamics of the negotiation will go hot and cold, from time to time. There will be times when we disagree and there is some pressure. Broadly speaking, I can tell you empirically, from talking to member states, foreign secretaries, finance ministers and prime ministers, that there is a growing determination to get a constructive outcome. The issue is whether the member states’ views make it through to the Commission, so there is an institutional issue. There will be issues, as the Chairman or Ms Reynolds raised early on, where we will need to resolve how we do this. The first point of tension is how the negotiations take place.

My general view is that this is eminently achievable because the attitude of the European states is one that wants a good long‑term relationship. Even this morning when Mr Tusk was saying sharp things, he said that we want to be friends. We want to have an amicable long‑term relationship. That desire, that wish, that commonality of culture, that commonality of interest is what I think will drive this in the longer run, much more than any negotiating gambits we use. It will be that.

Q1411 Sammy Wilson: I just want to ask some questions around the exit bill, which has been presented or has been mooted. The White Paper never mentioned anything about an exit bill. It mentioned keeping good relations with the EU etc., but there was no mention at all of any of the costs of leaving the EU. Is that an oversight or is that an indication that the Government do not believe they have any obligation to make payments?

Mr Davis: It is sort of neither, Mr Wilson. The first thing to say is that this bill has not been presented. I have not seen any rationale behind it. I have seen the Financial Times’ surmised rationale, but we have not seen anything. The other thing I would just remind people of is that we are at the beginning of a negotiation. Positions will be taken in all of this. Our stance is pretty straightforward. We are a law‑abiding nation. We believe in international systems of rules. We obey them, and we have rights and obligations. We will insist on one and meet the other. That is the first thing to say.

I do not necessarily agree with everything you said, but the House of Lords report on this was interesting, because it laid out the competing arguments quite well. From the Committee’s point of view, it is a very good starter in this exercise, but we do not recognise the numbers that you are talking about.

Q1412 Sammy Wilson: There seem to be two ends of the spectrum. One is that it is totally a legal obligation and the other end, as put out by one of the former legal advisers to the EU, is that it will be like a negotiation to buy a rug in a Moroccan market. It could be somewhere in between. I would not want you to give a figure, but have the Government made any assessment of what issues may well be a legal obligation that we cannot escape and what part will be down to political haggling?

Mr Davis: That has been done only in my head. There is ongoing work on all of the legal aspects. The reason that I point you to the House of Lords report is that it makes clear that there is an interaction between these two things. At the end of the day, anybody who has been a Minister in the Council of Ministers knows that the European Union is about getting answers to solve the problems. It will be a problem solving/negotiated/legal‑based outcome, and that is a woolly answer, but I suspect it will be a woolly exercise, at least in part.

Sammy Wilson: It might be a woolly exercise but—

Mr Davis: The outcome will not be woolly.

Sammy Wilson: It has been made clear, at least by some of the European negotiators, that it is going to be top of the list when it comes to the issues that need to be dealt with.

Mr Davis: It is one of the top three or four.

Q1413 Sammy Wilson: I suppose that is understandable, given the hole that there will be in the EU budget when the UK leaves the EU. Some people have suggested to the Committee that this could be one of the issues that puts negotiations into the mud very quickly and stops the negotiating process happening. In your visits around the various countries that you have visited so far, have you had any indication from member states as to how they view this and, secondly, how do the Government intend to deal with negotiations getting bogged down on this issue very quickly?

Mr Davis: I am not going to answer the last one, Mr Wilson, because I am not going to tell you what the negotiating tactics will be for dealing with any stop/go to the negotiations. In terms of the responses to me from going around, I think people understand. This comes right back down to our issue of parallel versus sequential negotiations. I think every country I have talked to understands that. Most of them are very sympathetic to our view.

There is a real systemic issue here or slight schizophrenia. They all understand the position. Most of them, nearly all of them, are sympathetic but there will be an issue of not breaking the solidarity of 27. As these are not negotiations but prior talks, I have not tried to break that. I have not tried to impact on that. What I would say to you is to look at the first set of guidelines that the Council hands down to the Commission and see how they respond to that, and then you can make a better judgment. At the moment, I am loath to be drawn any further on how we are going to deal with it, except to make plain that we think it should be a parallel negotiation, that we do not recognise the numbers being talked about and that we will meet our obligations, when we are convinced of what they are.

Q1414 Jeremy Lefroy: I wish you and your team every success in the coming couple of years. It is incredibly important and vital that we get the best possible deal, so all the best with that.

Mr Davis: Thank you for that.

Q1415 Jeremy Lefroy: If I can just talk a bit about science, innovation and research, I declare an interest as a member of the board of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and of the Innovative Vector Control Consortium, which has been in receipt of funding via the EU over the past few years. One of the reasons that people are very concerned about long‑term research funding is that, through Horizon 2020, there is an element of certainty that money will come for research to UK universities. Clearly, if Horizon 2020 is not there anymore, it will depend more upon the UK Government allocating research funding. What discussions have you had about continuing to participate in EU‑wide research programmes, which are of great benefit to UK research establishments?

Mr Davis: We have had none with the Commission yet, because we have not started. The first thing is that, very early on in this process, back in August, the Treasury put a lot of things in place, underwriting certainly up to 2020 and even beyond in some cases, encouraging universities and research operations to continue to make applications. In due course, it set in motion discussions with the Commission to make sure that they are properly met, how we fund them and all that sort of thing. At the same time, to offer a slight tangent, Mr Lefroy, we also did things on students to make sure that the base business of the universities was not jeopardised. I am not kidding; to get the Treasury to move in two weeks in August is a measure of quite how seriously the issue is taken.

In the longer run, as it stands, I do not know what ongoing relationship we may have with projects or operations like Horizon 2020, like Erasmus and like all the various elements. I will say to you what I have said to every university and every research operation that I have talked to, which is this: we are a science superpower. We have more Nobel laureates per capita than any other country in the world. In absolute terms, we are second only to the United States. One of the reasons for that is the internationalism of our science. We attract people here. They come to our best universities, the golden triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge in particular, but generally across the board as well. We intend to keep that going. We intend to continue that contest for talent, if you like, and we do not intend to allow this Brexit process to get in the way of that, if we can possibly stop it, and we will be able to stop it doing so.

In terms of the overarching guideline, we have been very clear about it. I have done everything from having dinner with the presidents of royal academies, through into Universities UK, through into talking to the various institutes in Cambridge, to talking to science‑driven companies like GSK. We have said the same message over and over again. There has been no doubt about it. I was criticised to some extent, around about Christmas, for saying that this is not a door‑slamming exercise on immigration, for example. That is true in terms of our attitude to funding and our attitude to access to people. Does that answer the question?

Q1416 Jeremy Lefroy: It is very helpful. If I could just touch on access to people, typically people who come from other countries to research are often not that well paid. It is not a profession you enter to become wealthy; it is because you care about it, are passionate about it and want to advance the sum total of human knowledge. How are we going to ensure that, in a work permit regime or whatever takes the place of the current free movement, limitations on having people below a certain salary do not disrupt the flow, in both directions, of researchers and academics?

Mr Davis: You are quite right that classical work permit systems tend to go off salary as a measure of market value, but nearly all of them, or nearly all the good ones anyway, have some mechanism in them that allows you to recognise another measure of value. Although I am not Home Secretary, you can be sure that I will be making quite serious representations on that front when we get closer to the Immigration Bill, which will come later down the way, to ensure that that happens. I cited before that I used to work in Canada as a landed immigrant, as they called them then. I had other people who were brought in from other countries who were not paid as much as I was, but who were very important in technical skills terms. We have to have a technical skills requirement, and that is what I would expect to see.

Q1417 Jeremy Lefroy: In the broader sense on freedom to work and work permits, concerns have been raised through many parts of the United Kingdom that there are special needs in certain areas for perhaps a greater level of access to people coming in than in others. Would a work permit system whereby permission to work was tied to a particular employment, which is the case in most of the rest of the world—as I have experienced myself and tends to say, “You are able to work in this place”—not be a way of enabling parts of the United Kingdom that really need more workers?

Mr Davis: You are attempting to draw me into doing the Home Secretary’s job, but let me say this to you. This is clearly an issue in some parts of the world. In Northern Ireland, for example, there are requirements for agricultural workers, I think, and other special requirements. In Scotland, you have some special requirements. You had Sadiq Khan here yesterday; he will have special requirements in London. Whatever we do has to be flexible enough to meet these requirements.

My job is not to write the policy; my job is to bring the policy back to the UK, so it can be written in the national interest. I reiterate a point I made in the debate the other day: that we will operate any future policy in the national interest, and of course it will be brought before Parliament. It will be brought before Parliament. Nothing can change until Parliament itself has had its say on this matter. I would expect all of the issues that you have raised, as they are incredibly important and good ones, to be addressed by whatever policy we create.

Q1418 Jeremy Lefroy: Can I just move on to the European Medicines Agency? Clearly this is a very important body. It is based in London. There has been a strong suggestion that it would no longer be in the United Kingdom. Now, the UK has a very strong pharmaceutical sector. Would there not be a strong case for arguing, if it did not stay in the UK in its entirety, at least there could be a dual nature of the European Medicines Agency, where it could stay in the UK and perhaps be in another European Union country? Given the importance of this for things like trials of new medicines, would that perhaps be an interesting and innovative way of tackling an issue like this, which is of great importance to the UK?

Mr Davis: I think there are 77 European agencies. We have two of them, one for medicines and one for banking. I do not want to pre‑judge the negotiation, but what you are saying is one component of the things we have to consider. With it is also what future arrangement, in any event, we have with respect to all of the global medicines approvals processes, both at the EU, which is where we are now, where there is a strong benefit in continuing to be parallel or matched, but also the FDA, where there is also a big market. Those are things that are currently under consideration. Can I ask that I talk to the Health Secretary about that specific point, because I have not talked about that specific point yet, and perhaps write back to the Committee on the matter?

Q1419 Jeremy Lefroy: I have just one final thing, Mr Chairman, very briefly. You have already mentioned the number of parliaments that are going to have to approve a final deal. Diplomacy, in respect of speaking with those parliaments and those countries, is going to be absolutely vital in the next two years. Perhaps parliamentarians here can be or already are involved. What plans do you have and do your colleagues in the Cabinet have for ensuring that as much of that positive diplomacy is done as possible so that, when the final exit agreement is put to those various parliaments, it will be approved?

Mr Davis: Somebody said I looked tired on television last week. Eight countries in three weeks is probably the reason, in part.

Jeremy Lefroy: It should not entirely depend on you.

Mr Davis: It will not just be me, by no means. That is what I am about to elaborate. Obviously the Foreign Office is involved as well. Liam and the DIT are involved as well. It is basically a whole‑of‑government exercise and, because of the operation of the various councils, virtually every Minister in Government is engaged. The Chancellor certainly has been already, to a great extent, but it is not just the Government.

Last night, I had a very brief meeting with the CBI to talk about their links across the countries. I will be going back to talk to research organisations on the same subject. We really need to engage almost an all‑of‑society operation in making plain to our European friends, because that is what they are, that they are our friends and they will continue to be our friends. We are not trying to threaten anybody. We are not trying to do anything heavy‑handed. We are not trying to be coercive. We are trying to ensure that we get something that is in the interests of everybody, and so the people in whose interests it is ought to be engaged in doing that, and that is the intention.

Q1420 Mr McFadden: Good morning, Secretary of State. You said in response to the Chairman earlier that you do the job on the basis of facts, but you have also confirmed this morning that the Government committed to the statement and the policy that no deal was better than a bad deal, without any economic assessment of what it would do to the country. Why did the Government do that?

Mr Davis: You say it was without economic assessment. I said to you earlier that econometric models are only as good as the assumptions put into them. A variety of things were being said at the time: Britain must not be allowed to do better, and so on. The truth of the matter is that, whatever happens with respect to the European Union, this policy will open up the free trade arrangements with the rest of the world and the fastest‑growing sectors of the world. Even when we were not going through the Brexit process, the secular estimates were that the European market would drop to 35% of our export market by the middle of the 2020s. It is quite plain where the general benefit is. A fact is not the same as a quantification.

Q1421 Mr McFadden: Without an assessment, you have mortgaged the country’s economic future to a sounding.

Mr Davis: I do not quite understand that question.

Mr McFadden: You do not have an economic assessment of the policy.

Mr Davis: I have a fairly clear view of how it will work out. I just do not quantify it yet. We will give a quantification later on, but it is quite plain how it will work it out. On the one hand, you have the aim of a good comprehensive free trade agreement. In the event that we do not get that or that there is no conclusion, we will have a fairly extensive contingency plan, which is already under way, as I said to you. Whatever happens, we will have sharply improved access to the rest of the world, off the back of a large number of free trade agreements, which will be coming into effect shortly after we leave—or some of them will be. You do not have to have a piece of paper with a number on it to have an economic assessment. I spent most of my working life before I came into politics dealing in business; you often knew what was a good deal, even though you did not have the numbers.

Mr McFadden: I hope that the people affected by your no‑deal option will take some comfort from that.

Mr Davis: You will have to speak up, sir. I cannot hear you properly.

Q1422 Mr McFadden: You said in the House of Commons on 24 January that the Government were aiming for, and I quote, “a comprehensive free trade agreement and a comprehensive customs agreement that will deliver the exact same benefits as we have”. The no‑deal WTO option does not do that.

Mr Davis: No, of course; I was expressing an ambition. I have to say to this to you, because one or two members of your party sort of jumped me and said, “How can you say that?” I make no apologies for being ambitious in this. We are talking about the future of the country here. I am aiming as high as I possibly can. That is what this is about. It is not about me trying to preserve a position of saying that we will aim low and then it looks like I have succeeded when I have not. We are aiming high. We are aiming to get the best possible deal for the country and I make no apology for that at all.

Q1423 Mr McFadden: The focus of my question is your statement, “No deal is better than a bad deal.” Sir John Major, your former boss and a former Conservative Prime Minister, said in his speech the other week that the WTO option is, and I quote him, “the worst possible outcome”. He is right, is he not?

Mr Davis: No. All you have to do is to read the rhetoric in the immediate aftermath of the referendum campaign and the result to see that some people were arguing for a punishment approach to the British people. There are ways of making this much worse than that. We are not going to do that; we are not going to allow that. The alternative option is by no means the worst possible outcome—by no means.

Q1424 Mr McFadden: Sir Ivan Rogers, when he was sitting in that chair a couple of weeks ago, told us that no major economy trades with the EU purely on the basis of WTO terms. He is right too, is he not?

Mr Davis: No major economy does. What do the major economies trade with them on?

Mr Lilley: He said “purely”.

Mr Davis: Purely, I see. There are always relationships between major economies. Even in a non‑outcome, I would expect some arrangements to be made.

Q1425 Mr McFadden: Can I finally ask you about the parliamentary process? Is it the Government’s policy to give Parliament a vote on defaulting to these WTO terms, if there is no free trade agreement?

Mr Davis: You were in the Chamber, so you heard what I said.

Mr McFadden: You would not take my intervention, so I could not ask you.

Mr Davis: I took quite a lot of interventions, but I did not see yours. There we are. There was no shortage of interventions taken. There never is when I speak at the despatch box, which I think you would recognise, if you are being fair about it. The simple fact is that we will bring back any negotiated deal to the UK Parliament, both Houses thereof. It is not my job to give tutorials in this matter. As I said in the House, Parliament always has the power to have a debate and a vote on any subject it chooses to. I can think of a number of methods of doing it, but I will leave that to you.

Q1426 Mr McFadden: My question was on your policy. Is it the Government’s policy to give themselves the option of defaulting to WTO terms, with no deal, without giving Parliament a vote? Is that your policy?

Mr Davis: The policy, as I stated, is when, not if, we get a deal—we are talking about tiny probabilities here—we will bring that back to the House of Commons, full stop.

Q1427 Mr McFadden: If there is no deal, what does the House of Commons do?

Mr Davis: We will no doubt make a statement to the House of Commons, and it is up to the House what it chooses to do.

Q1428 Alistair Burt: Good morning, Secretary of State. I could also pursue what Pat has been talking about, but we have discussed that quite a few times, so we will leave that be. It will no doubt come back. I have a couple of questions on migration but, before I do, can I just pick up something that both Jeremy and Dominic Raab said? My impression also from visiting friends on the continent is that the position has eased. You are right: a growing sense of the inevitably that we meant what we said in the referendum or that the referendum result was conclusive has certainly been apparent over the months. It started by people saying, “You are going to change this, aren’t you?” Now that is not the case and, therefore, there is a different style.

However, when we start the negotiations proper very shortly, the issue of the bill will be there—the amount that we are being asked to pay and our views on that. The chance of rhetoric getting out of control at that stage is also very high. Could you assure us that you and colleagues will do everything in their power to ease down the rhetoric at that stage? We saw a couple of examples in the House yesterday; it is very easy. The papers will pick it up. The papers and the media want a confrontation and most of us do not want a confrontation. We think that your style and what you are talking about are absolutely right, but careless rhetoric from senior colleagues, the wrong tweet and the wrong conversation just scales it all up. Can you assure us that you will do everything in your power to make sure that colleagues keep the atmosphere that you are talking about and Donald Tusk suggested in one of his tweets?

Mr Davis: You will have noticed that, in the last nine months, I have not responded to any provocations on this matter. I suspect that the principal challenge to my health in the next two years will be having to be diplomatic, but you are right: it is very important that we ensure that the mood and temperature of our exchanges is controlled and, as far as possible, amicable. I say this because you are a practical man: there will be times when the negotiations get tough, I am sure, but tough does not mean spiteful, angry or whatever you want to choose.

I also start from another point, I should just say to the Committee. I am not one of those who does not like the European project. For the other countries of Europe, it is incredibly important. For Eastern Europeans, it is incredibly important these days. It reflects their commitment to liberty, democracy, the rule of law and so on. I start from an understanding that this is disappointing for them. Let me be plain about it: our friends are disappointed that we are leaving. I allow a considerable amount of slack just off the back of that. Yes, I will continue to say to colleagues to keep this as calm as possible and as amicable as possible. The last point that Mr Tusk made in his tweet this morning, which one could have responded to, was that we want to have amicable relations between the EU and the UK after this is over.

Q1429 Alistair Burt: That is absolutely right. I welcome what you said about the European project. Could I come on to migration? We were told, when we first spoke to you and Mr Robbins, that there were 57 separate studies being carried out by the department on the impact of all this and I am sure there are more now. What have those studies from around the UK told the department about the value of migration to the UK economy and how is that feeding into the process of negotiation?

Mr Davis: It is not yet, because negotiation has not started. It is part of the reason that, from about November onwards, I started highlighting to people that this is not to slam the door shut. This is not to pull up the drawbridge. This is simply an issue of control, not of saying that we are going to stop everybody coming. It is of note that I made the first speech on that to the CBI and then the second comment after a visit with the Chancellor to the City. People began to notice that. I made similar comments that have not got quite so much coverage, with respect to Mr Lefroy’s comments, when talking to Universities UK, the various universities individually themselves, vice-chancellors, presidents of royal academies and so on. It is plain to me that we need to be sensitive about that. It is really an issue for the Home Office to deal with, but my issue on it for the moment is managing the expectations of people, so that they understand that the way we run this policy is going to be in the national interest.

Q1430 Alistair Burt: It is and it is not about the Home Office. There are wider issues. We have spoken to a number of employers in different parts of the country and, by and large, what they have said to us is that it does not matter about the type of business and it is not about highly skilled workers. A lot of companies have expanded their workforce because their businesses have expanded, and they have taken people in from the European Union not to take the jobs of British workers but because they have more work to do. They are anticipating that continuing. Accordingly, because of the importance of migration in the whole referendum issue, will migration, the ease of movement and issues around that be part of the discussions that you will be having in order to make sure that the needs of the economy c
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[Ste]

63,885 characters.

We'll let Riejuborg go through it point by point.

[Itchy]

[Riejufixing]

[Riejufixing]

[Itchy]

[Riejufixing]

[Johnnythefox]

Would you like chips with your Labour Gammon?


John McDonnell: Labour wants to push ahead with Brexit



On eve of conference, shadow chancellor defies calls for party to promise second referendum


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/22/john-mcdonnell-labour-wants-to-push-ahead-with-brexit

[Riejufixing]

[Im-a-Ridah]

Self government is always worth the price. It sounds like many of you would have surrendered to Hitler because it cost less

[Val]

FTFY:

[Val]

[Ste]

Just because someone wants you to leave doesn't mean they're a neo nazi.

Let's be honest, that's the real reason for Brexit.