Category Archives: News

Its conference season and the one time in the year when the Lib Dems get reasonably good news coverage. Our conference is first, followed by Labour and then the Tories. We need to get our message across about Brexit and not lose or have our message diluted by Vince’s announcement that he may or may not step down or lose the message to a difficult policy debate such as the one on immigration.

The focus for this conference should be on Brexit and how can we stop the UK leaving the EU. Lord Kerr believes that we can still withdraw the Article 50 letter without consequences especially if both sides agree.  The referendum was advisory, and therefore Parliament has the option to vote it down or reject Brexit. This is unlikely because the Tories on the right-wing of the party won’t allow this to happen plus they have the support of Democratic Unionist party and some Labour MP’s who support Brexit. The math is not there, especially if they fear a public outcry. Unfortunately, even as project lies unravels there are still many who still agree with the sentiment for leaving the EU no matter what the cost.

I wanted to look at what other countries (mainly taken at random) thought about UK’s Brexit. You should note that the comments made by other nationals are made from their point of view, and that should be respected, even though you may not agree with them.

The French mainstream politicians have shown little interest for our Brexit. Many feel it’s a good for the EU as the UK has never really wanted to integrate and Brussels will be a more comfortable place after we leave. There is little sympathy for the 300,000 plus French civilians living in London as they are, incorrectly, seen as tax avoiders.

India had said, when May went to India promoting UK trade links, that they are in no rush to do a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain and will demand easier access for Indians nationals to migrate to Britain as part of any future trade relationship. The Indian High Commissioner has since reinforced this view.

The Germans think of the Brits as fellow ‘Northerners’ that work hard, share similar values and have the misfortune of not being born in Germany 🙂  of all the EU countries, the Germans have taken the Brexit decision most to heart. They now firmly believe in the European project and anyone, who rejects it, is seen as rejecting them.

BMW urged Angela Merkel to ensure that UK has a good deal as they are concerned that a failure to secure a good Brexit agreement with Britain could affect its £2.4bn annual exports from the UK. However, BMW has said if, after Brexit, customs delays are clogging up supplies they will seriously look to move – putting 8000 jobs at risk.