Be Excellent To Each Other

It's better than if they were still going the other way, for sure.

This really is a meeting of the minds, eh?

You were posting as I was, which is fine because that just looks like a wall of figures

'HSBC Breakfast Brexit Briefing' would be more alliteratively pleasing.

My new Twitter bio is "Smoke me a Ukipper, I'll be back for Brexit"

Bravo!

Thanks APOD, really informative stuff. Great heads-up!

Don't encourage him.

Others much better placed that me to comment, but according to BBC, both the FTSE100 and 250 have risen ~+5% yesterday and today (so far).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36660133

Class

Look closely, you can see some green shoots!

If anything, this rise reflects a belief that Article 50 may not be triggered.

If that's the case then I reckon these city slickers don't know the Great British Public like I do.

Well every day that goes on without it being activated means it's less likely it will be.

To be fair, I was mainly thinking FTSE100 and 250, which have bounced back +5% (and in the case of the FTSE100, now riding relatively high).
Note this is not in any way, shape or form an endorsement of any kind on my part, merely an observation.

For the sake of everyone, long may this rising/improving trend continue I say, however much that I & the rest of us here loathe this result. Being proved right butters no parsnips.

Indeed. This isn't the market reacting to Brexit, because we don't know what Brexit will look like, and the fundamentals won't change for two years.

But there are things that'll suck in the short term: the uncertainty is enough to sink or indefinitely delay some plans (Siemens are pausing a windfarm they were building, and Virgin announced the cancellation of a project worth 3000 jobs.) Very risk-averse business like tech startups may prefer to aggressively avoid the UK. Due to the banks only being able to trade in Euros due to some special deal that we're unlikely to keep [1], and banks being risk-averse and slow to move, I think we'll see at least some finance jobs start to move. And the housing market is clearly at risk, as it's the classic fatal combination of very illiquid and unarguably in a bubble (at least in many parts of the UK.) That's why the overall FTSE100 isn't doing too badly, but some segments within it -- house builders, estate agents, UK banks -- are getting hammered.

[1] I only realised this recently. I think it's going to be quite important.

But paradoxically any resulting recovery in the markets will be used by those advocating that it should.

Yeah, sure. I've veered towards gallows humour over the last week 'coz it's all I got left. I'd rather there wasn't a rerun of 2008 or 1992.

What's your take on the Tory leadership race, Cavey? Who would you want to see get the top job?

I'd love this to be true, but when I hear Merkel saying there is no way Brexit can be reversed, I know we're grasping at straws.
I actually think that if she'd wanted to, e.g. if they'd said, or even faintly implied, the door was still open until Article 50 was actually triggered, they could've done much to reduce the probability of Brexit ever actually happening - but they've done the exact reverse, they absolutely can't wait to get shot of us, with indecent haste.

I truly haven't even given it any thought as yet; that's how low my fires are burning right now.

EDIT: NOT BORIS "FUCKING" JOHNSON THOUGH, OBV.

We should put it in a box with a radioactive source and some poison.

Right now, we don't know how much is public posturing and how much of it is being said in smokey-rooms.

But we know as soon as we activate it the clock starts ticking, which puts us at a massive disadvantage with negotiations. We hold no cards. No one is going to want to sign those papers.

I'm not saying it won't happen, just the liklihood decreases every day as the situation changes.

Legally, the EU cannot force us to declare article 50. So it could end up being a lengthy stalemate.

Anyone seen my cat?

That's my reading too. We've been a constant pain the EU's side going back at least as far as Maastricht and I wouldn't blame them for having given up on accommodating us, to be honest. Farage wails about them needing us more than we need them (which is fundamentally untrue on a straight reading of trade deficit amounts), but that doesn't carry much weight with me. Someone told me a long time ago to always remember that businesses don't do business; people do business. Piss someone off enough and it doesn't matter how much financial sense it makes: they still won't do a deal with you because they won't like you and they won't trust you. I think we've reached that stage with many European leaders.

Maybe.

Regarding who can trigger Article 50, on a nerdy constitutional law blog I wish I'd known about years before, it might unclear if the executive's prerogative powers are actually sufficient.

My instinct is that whilst it could be, guidance from Parliament linking activation to a repeal of the 1972 Act and transitory powers is possibly the safest option.

Can't we somehow sacrifice Cameron, Gove, Farage and Johnson to placate them? Not politically I mean but actually throw their limp carcasses before the European parliament with a note just saying sorry and a cheque for a hundred billion or something? Grasping at straws a bit here.

Weeeeell, they do like to export stuff to us, and we're quite a big customer, so I think they may end up acting at least semi-reasonably. We do have stuff they want - our money.

At the same time they don't want to appear soft on us, as it will galvanise those in other Eurosceptic countries. "Look at the great deal the UK got! We could get that!"

Well, yes, I'm not saying there aren't competing interests here, obviously, but to say we have no cards at all is not right.

And we'll end up in the internal market again with free movement of people, is my bet.

Ain't that the truth. People and businesses will positively cut their noses in spite of their faces if they don't like you; the child-like assumption and blanket expectation of Farage & Co. that the EU "have" to let us have full, unfettered access and mutually beneficial trade deals, purely because that might be to optimal pounds, shillings and pence advantage to both sides is utterly naive in the extreme. It also entirely ignores the political dimension: the remaining EU countries definitely want to avoid an "exit contagion" above ALL else, and that includes selling a few Mercedes to the Brits, because if this were to happen there would be NO EU at all. We must be made a terrible example of, then, regardless of all the wherefores etc.

I seriously, seriously hope Gove, Johnson and Farage are made to be publicly force-fed their oft-repeated lies on this specific front, time and again, on every public forum. Preferably with birching involved.

Quite possibly, but if that happens there will be riots from those who voted Leave because they are against immigration.

Yes, but where are they in comparison to last week is what I mean.

Farage would literally be screaming for them.

And UKIP could quite possibly win a lot more seats in the next GE or at least get even more vote share.

cor, good show from Cameron on PMQs there. "It might be in my party's interest to have you sat there, but it's not in the national interest, so for god's sake go"

Who was he talking about?

I'm not going to give any credit to Cameron for anything he does now. This whole thing is his fault more than anyone else. Even fucking George Osborne thought he was being a stupid cunt by having a referendum.

I like to imagine that he wasn't looking at anyone in particular when he said that so half the room assumed he meant them and got up and left.

He was referring to Corbyn of course.

Aimed at Corbyn?

He's right, but it's a bit fucking rich.

Well...

Wasn't she (for that reason) made Minister For Equality Except For Them Gays?

Precisely so, yes. Apparently everyone in government was genuinely unaware of the irony.

She absolutely was. Nick Boles took the Equal Marriage brief.

If my recall is correct, she said something like her constituents had asked her to vote against it.

P'raps, but she's still a bigoted idiot.

My bad, I didn't realise she voted against it prior to being made Minister for Women (and later, Minister for Women and Equalities.)