Archive for the ‘brexit crisis’ Category
Posted by seumasach on August 13, 2016
In fact, we’ve already been there: back in the last crisis the pound fell to as low as 1.05 euro without leading to a surge in exports. On the one hand the UK’s manufacturing base is depleted and on the other, as emphasized here, it is intertwined with production elsewhere. Interconnectedness makes a nonsense of Brexit which probably why in the end it will never happen. Isolationism is not an option and isolationist sentiment is merely a rejection of globalization which is no longer comfortably on our terms.
Business Insider
11th August, 2016
The argument by the pro-Brexit lobby that the fall in the pound would boost UK exports is “unsophisticated,” says Credit Suisse.
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Posted by seumasach on August 12, 2016
When you have massive debts and you’re never anywhere near to getting to0 the end of the month there are three logical options. Firstly, you can enter into a deal with your creditors, in this case, primarily, China. This is the now discarded Osborne option after the lately departed Chancellor of the Exchequer. Secondly, you can “take out” your creditors. This is the al Capone/Hillary Clinton option. Or, finally, you wait for the bailiffs. This is are post-Brexit option. As the pound falls the Chinese and others will simply buy up the UK in the Great British sell-off. In a way, it is good news since they could simply convert the sterling reserves to gold or other assets, leaving the pound to sink even further. By triggering the regionalization of the UK the Scottish independence referendum has helped to prepare for this scenario by dividing the country into bite-sized units forced to sell assets to make ends meet. Regional administrations can also easily be dominated by overseas interests. I have long argued for the first approach whereby we continue to act as a sovereign nation by resolving the debt issue through negotiations at state to state level. That approach has been spurned and the Panarin scenario looms. Of course, it’s not too late to change course.
From semiconductors to soccer, foreign takeovers are good news for Britain post-Brexit
CityAM
12th August, 2016
While alarmist in tone, this narrative is in part borne out by data – stats recently released by Thomson Reuters point to an increase in the value of foreign takeovers in the month after the UK’s vote to leave the EU. Almost 60 transactions totalling $34.5bn were struck by foreign companies for British firms in the month after 23 June, compared with 79 deals worth $4.3bn in the month leading up to the vote.
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Posted in brexit crisis, UK economy | Tagged: foreign takeovers, The Great British Sell-Off, The Panarin scenario | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 11, 2016
A timely intervention by the Americans just to make sure there’s no backsliding on their post-Brexit, “containment” of China policy for us.
Guardian
11th August, 2016
The Chinese company with a major stake in the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear power station has been charged by the US government over nuclear espionage, according to the US justice department.
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Posted in brexit crisis, Containing China | Tagged: China US reations, Chinese soft power, US-China: clash of world systems | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 10, 2016
Britain’s post-Brexit foreign policy: detente with Russia, containment of China. This, presumably, is merely a reflection of US foreign policy- the culmination of the Obama doctrine and the policy basis of the next US presidency. There is a logic here: just as confrontation with both Russia and China is unrealistic, so is detente with both together. If we are to finally bring an end to the Cold War then this is to be applauded. Russia and China cannot be turned against each other: this is not 1972. At the same to “containment” of China may turn out to be just a posture, although a very expensive one, especially for the UK. Washington intends to hold back, Canute-style, the incoming waves of China’s economic development model, partly by mimicking it with a neo-Keynesian policy shift. Neo-Keynesianism in one country is not possible: it has to be carried out globally on the basis of a new global financial architecture, a reset of the global currency system. In the end , constructive engagement with our main creditor and the world’s productive centre is inevitable.
Theresa May speaks to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since becoming Prime Minister
Independent
10th August, 2016
Theresa May has spoken to Russian president Vladimir Putin for the first time since she became Prime Minister.
The Kremlin said both leaders expressed dissatisfaction with UK-Russian relations and pledged to improve ties.
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Posted in brexit crisis, Containing China, Global peace process | Tagged: Chinese soft power, End of empire, New Cold War, new global financial architecture, Obama agenda, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 8, 2016
If Trump’s detente with Russia is aimed at driving a wedge between Russia and China it looks like a forlorn hope. As for isolating Russia and China that depends on checking both European and Asian integration, the former now rendered much more difficult by Brexit. The Chinese assessment that Washington’s “devoted efforts towards a global anti-missile shield also reveals an anxiety over its declining influence in the world” is accurate: it is no longer about US leadership but, rather, a retreat into safe space, albeit one as extended as possible. The main active thrust in US foreign policy is now to frustrate Chinese “soft power”, the spread of China’s enormously successful developmental model which the West cannot in any way match. For the moment this has been successful, shifting Argentina, Brazil, Britain and Australia out of the Chinese economic sphere of influence with Venezuela and South Africa next in line. It remains to be seen how long the US can prevail on these countries to abandon their economic interests for a “security” alliance with the USA. The UK’s equivocation about triggering Article 50 is symptomatic of this conflict of interests.
Xinhua
4th August, 2016
BEIJING, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) — Both China and Russia oppose the planned deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on the Korean Peninsula, which endangers their national security and challenges the region’s strategic balance.
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Posted by seumasach on August 4, 2016
Independent
4th July, 2016
Bookmakers have shortened their odds that Article 50 — the two-year notice period the must give to officially leave the EU — will never be triggered.
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Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fraud, brexit mudge and fudge, mother of all mudge and fudge | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 4, 2016
“A prolonged period of diminishing influence and relative economic decline is now the likely future for our nearest neighbour. The pressure point this time will not be the threat to sterling exposed by a furious US President, but rather the threat from a diversion of FDI flows seeking secure access to the EU single market.”
We need to go as far away as Dublin to find a journalist who can nonchalantly state the obvious. Thank you, John Looby!
He also rounds the argument off nicely:
“In the longer-run, this will likely see a new generation of pragmatic leaders lead the UK back into the EU. As Heath, Jenkins and others ultimately understood in the wake of Suez, they have nowhere else to go.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself!
John Looby
Business Post
4th August, 2016
Almost 60 years ago a popular and experienced Tory Prime Minister destroyed his career and plunged his country into crisis with a reckless risk which backfired spectacularly. While the retreat from Empire was never likely to be smooth, the stark weakness exposed by the debacle of Suez undoubtedly accelerated the long march to the margins.
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Posted in brexit crisis, British economy | Tagged: Foreign Direct Investment(FDI), the brexit disaster | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 3, 2016
Why the DUP needs to stop gloating about Brexit and put people before party for once
Belfast Telegraph
3rd August, 2016
The border was, in a sense, put to bed with the Good Friday Agreement. The constitutional question that had dogged our history and was central to the Troubles was neutralised in so far as all parties to the Agreement accepted the consent principle and that any change to the constitutional status quo could only come about by the consent of the majority of the electorate in Northern Ireland by way of a referendum agreeing to a united Ireland.
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Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit and Ireland, Irish peace process | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 3, 2016
“The Bank of England is asleep at the wheel again, and we will be back to beleaguered banksters begging for bailouts – and the taxpayer will be ripped off yet again, but bigger this time.”
Bail-outs are no longer permitted under EU regulations, drawn up by Michel Barnier, bete noir of the Murdoch press, so it will be interesting how they play this one post Brexit. In any case, the people should take to the streets to oppose any bailouts!
UK heading for new financial crisis ‘on grander scale than 2008’ with Bank of England ‘asleep at the wheel’, says AS
Independent
3rd August, 2016
The Bank of England’s annual stress tests of the UK’s banks, designed to ensure Britain’s lenders will not be at the heart of another destructive financial crisis, have been branded “worse than useless”, by a new report.
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Posted in brexit crisis, British economy | Tagged: brexit bailouts, no more bailouts, no more bombing!-no more bailouts! | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 2, 2016
Cailean Bochanan
2nd August, 2016
“Brexit means Brexit!” but what is Brexit? Well, now we know. It is the alignment of the UK with the policy which will dominate the next US presidency: the strategy of containment or isolation of China.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in brexit crisis, Containing China | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, brexit agenda, Chinese soft power, End of empire, the brexit disaster | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 2, 2016
The coup in Brazil bringing into question both the BRICS and Mercosur, Brexit and the dismissal of Osborne, the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission report on human rights in China, the Hague ruling on the South China Seas, the weakening of Australia-China ties, the renewed protests in Hong Kong including demands for secession: all these point to the policy of “containment” of China as the dominant theme of US foreign policy under the next presidency. Detente with Russia should be viewed within this context.
Asia Times
2nd August, 2016
Prime Minister Therese May’s decision to delay approving a new nuclear power station partly funded by China at Hinkley Point may be an indication that she will soon be dismantling many of Cameron government’s policy plans. Hinkley Point being China’s first nuclear power project in the West, Beijing will lose its face if it is canceled.
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Posted in brexit crisis, Containing China | Tagged: brexit agenda, China-UK comprehensive strategic partnership, osborne doctrine | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 