This is (as far as I can make it) a factual analysis of the trade options (highlighted in bold) following Brexit. It shows there is no option that meets the “Leavers” goals, and every variant other than the one we are just about to leave, is pretty bad for the UK. Note that all the picture links lead to the original, more detailed data source.

These are our choices (the above BBC article explains more): The Norway model and the Swiss model have free trade, but also everything Brexiters hate (free movement, and the same contribution to the EU as now) with no say at all in the decisions the EU makes. They both will sacrifice the City of London’s EU trade. The Norwegian Prime minister’s opinion of their model in the BBC video clip above (click on the picture above to get to the BBC article) indicates that in her informed opinion, it is not a good option for the UK, even as it stands.

Some Brexiters say that the Swiss, who recently had a referendum to limit free movement, will renegotiate with the EU to get the kind of “free trade – no free movement” that they want.  In fact the UK  just made it almost impossible as the Bloomberg article on the left shows. As Bloomberg notes: “Switzerland was always going to struggle to reach an agreement with the European Union to limit immigration. Britain’s decision to split from the bloc just made it near impossible”.

The Turkish model sounds attractive, but as my prior post outlines, it severely restricts negotiating power with other countries, still disadvantages the Commonwealth,  there will be no easy access of our people into the EU,  and it excludes services.

Then there is the Canadian model (CETA).  It is good for manufacturing (no tariffs) OK for agriculture (some tariffs) and dreadful for the City (services are excluded).  Canada is still negotiating their deal with Brussels – they have no favoured status at the moment, and are on WTO tariffs. CETA requires ratification by every EU country, and is being held up by those countries who do not have visa-free access to Canada.  The same will certainly happen to the UK in this or any other negotiations. The Canadian process started in 2009, was agreed in draft in 2014, and is still not in place.  So assume it will take us a good long time to get a deal, at least 7 years.

Everything else is the WTO tariffs, and these will be the default after the 2-year Article 50 period expires (in the absence of or pending a negotiated and more favorable trade deal). The tariffs  range for the EU from 40% for baked goods to 10% for cars.  It will massively disadvantage manufacturing exports, and eliminate the benefit of devaluation for exporters. 

Those who think that Germany has to allow tariff free access to their markets so they can sell BMWs here should ask what else are the rich English going to buy.  Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Alfa-Romeo are all EU imports.  Jaguar does not have the capacity, or the range to backfill this volume.  They would be unlikely to invest in the UK market opportunity until they were certain that the UK was keeping punitive tariffs on EU luxury cars permanently.  Without a massive Jaguar expansion,  the British will continue to buy European luxury cars, because that’s the place that makes 90% of them.  European manufacturers will just put prices up 7% and take a 3% hit on profit, and they are done. No special bargain should be necessary for them to continue to profit from the UK market. And I think you will see the rich Brexit voters of rural England continue to swan around in their German cars, just like before.

The EU has made it very clear there are no fantasy Johnson/Gove/Leadsom/Hannan timescales or trade deals. Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU trade commissioner who will lead all EU trade talks has made it clear that all elements of the UK withdrawal from the EU have to be completed (in 2 years) before any trade talks have started.  One of the candidates to be next UK prime minister, Liam Fox (certain to be in the new Conservative front bench) called Ms Malmstrom’s stance “bizarre and stupid”, saying the Brexit talks would include trade (the BBC’s Chris Morris in Brussels says Ms Malmstrom’s view of two consecutive sets of negotiations appears technically correct).  I would suggest that starting negotiations by calling your lead counterpart “stupid” almost guarantees a bad result.

No EU official has indicated that the UK can get tariff free access to the EU without their four principles (including free movement of people) being adopted.  While various organizations and individuals in Europe have said a deal could be struck that might meet UK needs, they are not going to be doing the negotiations.  Those who will be, have been very clear.

I can find no senior politician on either side in the UK who seems to have a coherent understanding of this dilemma  or has a pragmatic plan to get an effective negotiated result for the UK.  All the Conservative front bench seem to be expecting a fantasy of access to the free market without free movement of people, which  the EU has made clear is not an option.  Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader,has said he wants the EU exit Article 50 to be implemented immediately, precipitating an immediate start of the 2-year exit clock with no trade deal in place at all.  Nigel Farage wants the same, and today they have been joined in the “immediate Article 50” camp by Andrea Leadsom, the hedge-fund backed Conservative leadership contender.

John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor has predictably said something quite different.  At the Royal Festival Hall in London, he announced five principles upon which Labour will judge any negotiated deal and which would have to be met for Labour to give backing for a vote to trigger Article 50.  They include,  freedom of trade for UK businesses in the EU, the rights of UK financial services companies to win business across the EU, existing protections at work provided by the EU to be maintained, and no UK citizen currently living or working in the EU to have their rights affected.  From what the EU have said so far, I would suggest that none of those are likely to be delivered.  In that case, McDonnell says that Labour would not vote to support Article 50 being exercised, entirely at variance with Corbyn’s position.

It seems pretty clear to me that almost all senior UK politicians are in a fantasy world, and are wholly at variance with the EU, who hold all the negotiating cards.  When professionals take over, the process will settle down somewhat, but I don’t expect a rosy outcome.  I would expect some kind of Canadian style free trade deal ultimately, with the City’s role as an EU financial hub being sliced up and given to the Irish, French, Dutch and Germans.  Inward investment to the UK for car manufacturing will probably slow down and move to the cheaper EU countries like the Czech republic and Bulgaria etc. UK citizens in France and other EU countries will lose reciprocal/free medical treatment, and many will have to return because of that and the dire effect of currency devaluation on their income and expenses. But of course it could all be much worse than that, if we have to fall back on all that, plus WTO tariffs for 7 plus years.

What about Scotland? The current market view (as of today) is that oil would have to be at $130 per barrel before Scotland’s deficit would meet EU membership rules. The rest of the UK is currently funding the Scottish deficit. If Scotland left the UK and joined the EU, they would have to accept the Euro, accept WTO tariffs for exporting into the UK (80% of the Scottish export market), accept a customs border with the UK, and accept German austerity rules for managing their deficit (which would be greater than Greece’s). While the rest of the UK would probably be better off on a purely economic basis, it would be a massive diminution of the UK’s world standing, particularly if Scotland is followed by Northern Ireland.

However economically unattractive, EU membership may well be an achievable option for Scotland to pursue if they want to.  Dr Kirsty Hughes, in the only practical expert analysis on Scottish membership of the EU I have come across so far (see the link to the left), concludes that the Scots may have a fair chance of EU membership, but only once they are an independent nation.  Given their good relations with the EU, the Scots are also much more likely to get concessions on accession, than the UK will on exit.  She also has said, quite reasonably, that the Scots  will not want to go through the whole pain of the UK leaving and renegotiating a trade deal, before starting their own accession talks.  Instead, they should be negotiating their own trade deal at the same time as the UK is doing theirs (or even before).   If that is their goal, they need to get their referendum done in the first half of next year, and be fully independent of the UK by the end of 2019. The EU might well be flexible then on continuing trade terms for Scotland (and tough on exit terms for the UK) while they negotiate accession.

There are many other radioactive elements of the EU decision, but trade is the critical one that will affect everyone’s lives.  This summary of the options and likely outcomes is a marker post for me and I’ll come back to it over the next few years to see how it all panned out.  You might want to as well. But like many in the UK right now, I don’t think this particular story is going to end well.

A customs Union with the EU is an attractive option for many Brexit proponents. The only major one concluded is with Turkey. Here’s what it involves…..the following is a description of the deal from it’s Wikepedia page. How do you like this particular bargain, Leavers?

• Turkey, by accepting the customs union protocol, was giving the EU the power to manipulate the foreign relations of Turkey. Turkey was accepting all the treaties between EU and any non EU country (i.e. all the other countries in the world) by precondition. (16th and 55th articles[4] )
• Turkey, by entering to the customs union, was accepting not to do any treaties with any non-EU country without the knowledge of EU. Otherwise, EU had the right to intervene and annul that treaty. (56th article[4])
• Turkey, by entering to the customs union, was unconditionally accepting to make laws which are parallel to the newer laws made for the customs union by EU. (8th article[4])
• Turkey, by entering to the customs union, was accepting to obey the all laws and decisions of European Court of Justice, where there is no single Turkish judge. (64th article[4])
• Turkey, by entering to the customs union, was opening its own market to European goods. The domestic goods of Turkey were in a great difficulty to compete against these due to a difference in quality. The European goods would flow into Turkey without any customs fee.

It may of course be that there is some deal that is not Norwegian one, and not the Turkish one, and not the Swiss one.  It’s completely unclear to me how then the EU would explain the crap deal these other states got.  In fact, the EU has made clear the terms of the UK deal again and again.  It’s Free Trade and EU rules, like free movement, and payment into the EU, or it’s the right to control our borders and WTO (World Trade Organisation) trade rules. All the evidence shows there is no magic place for the UK.  There certainly isn’t one for the US……

Malasana portraits - the madonna

Malasana portraits - husband and wife

Malasana portraits - true romance

Malasana portraits - old friends

Malasana portraits - the teacher

Malasana portraits - I sit in the square

Malasana portraits - Nooo - really?

Malasana portraits - The lady of a certain stripe

Malasana portraits - Juan the lad

Technical notes: The photos were all taken with my Olympus EM5ii with the Oly 42.5mm lens –  85mm in full frame equivalent.  It’s a useful combination – superfast focus, plus enough depth of field to isolate the subject.  Post was done in LIghtroom and OnOne Photo10.

In this series I have focused mostly on the wonderful hood mascots that stood on the radiators, and routinely I imagine, impaled hapless pedestrians. Reasonably I suppose none of these would be allowed today, and there are few cars in any event that could act as a foil to the superb jet plane mascots of the ’41 and ’48 Packards. There is a tech note below the photos on the camera used and so on and so forth.

Click this link to get to the Flickr album, and then click the arrow at the right to page through them. Once the slide show below reaches the end by the way, it will move into the next album.  Just refresh the page to start again.

Red Kite

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Red Kites at Gigrin Farm - E-M1ii

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Red Kites at Gigrin Farm - E-M1ii

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Red Kites at Gigrin Farm - E-M1ii

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Red Kites at Gigrin Farm - E-M1ii

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Red Kites at Gigrin Farm - E-M1ii

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Red Kites at Gigrin Farm - E-M1ii

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Red Kites at Gigrin Farm - E-M1ii

Firstly she has only been for Brexit for 3 years.  In 2013 she said: “I don’t think the UK should leave the EU. I think it would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty at a time when the tectonic plates of global success are moving.

“Like the rise and fall of the Roman and Greek Empires we are seeing the rise of the Asian and South American economies at a time when our own future is less certain. And to be honest economic success is the vital underpinning of every happen nation. The well being we all crave goes hand in hand with economic success.”

My dear father, Harry McAughtry passed away on 8th February this year, and his funeral was held at the quiet Kentish church in Halstead on 19th February.   As always when he was involved, the occasion brought together family and friends, but this time to share in our loss, and remember his life and his influence on ours. It was an emotional day, and one for reflection also.   

Harry McAughtry 19/10/1921-8/2/2016

In the summer of 1937, my mother and father met at St Abbs Haven, in Northumberland and that encounter was the beginning of an 80 year love story. This afternoon, I wanted to tell you a little about what happened next, to give you a glimpse of the adventures he and Joyce had over those 80 years.

Harry met Joyce when he was 16. Actually, last year he told us a bit more about that meeting. It seems that every year there was a skit put on by the boys staying at the haven. That year, it was to be a mock wedding. Owing, he said, to his unparalleled beauty, Dad was going to be the bride. So he walked up to Joyce, who he’d had his eye on, and said do you have a white dress. She said yes. And he said, would you mind if I borrow it as I need to wear one tomorrow. One of the more original chat-up lines and the start of a wonderful relationship.

The next year, with war looming, he entered Glasgow University and he graduated in 1941 with a degree in Civil Engineering. He was immediately called up into the Royal Engineers as a Sapper or private. But within a year he was moved to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and was commissioned in October 1942 as a full Lieutenant. The Photo on the left  is him in uniform in 1943. It turned out he was in REME for for a special mission.

In 1943, the year he got married, Harry was sent to a discreet house in Petersham, in Richmond, to attend the first training course on a new top secret radar system. Britain had invented radar, and by 1937 had built radar towers all along the south and east coast. The original radar stations were huge towers, over 300 feet high – quite unlike today’s radar systems. They enabled us to win the Battle of Britian, but there were problems with the first designs. They couldn’t detect low flying planes, or their height, and only looked out to sea. Something better was urgently needed, with more efficiency and more power. In 1940, at Birmingham University, something called the cavity magnetron had been invented, which enabled microwave radiation to be produced at incredible efficiency. You all own one by the way – it’s what powers your microwave ovens.  It turned out to have huge potential for radar, and a massive effort was undertaken over the next few years to turn that into reality.

In March 1943 the first truly modern radar intercept system with this new radiation source was built, and that’s what Harry had been selected to work on. It was called the AMES type 13 radar – and from from then to the end of the war, Harry worked installing and running these and other systems into radar stations around the south and east coasts. From then on the efficiency of German aircraft detection was greatly improved, and these systems were later used to shoot down the V1 bombs also.

Dad was decommissioned in 1946, and went back to Glasgow with Joyce, where John was born in August. That year they had a chance conversation with a friend about Malaya, and Harry applied for a post in the railways there. So in 1947, at the age of 26, after having spent their entire working and married life in a world war, Harry and Joyce arrived in the impossibly exotic and warm far east, where they spent 10 very happy years. He was a careful man as most of you know, and he had heard from someone that Malayans washed clothes by pounding them with rocks. So he bought 90 pairs of Army surplus shorts to cover the wear and tear – which turned out to be about 85 pairs too many. He was still wearing them twenty years later.

Dad’s main job in Malaya was as District Engineer. That job involved responsibility for all bridges, track, stations and building, and for the many hundreds of staff and gangs that worked there. The first big posting was in Bukit Mertajam, near Penang on the west coast, where I was born. There he looked after 250 miles of track that crossed the jungle and multiple rivers and went right up to the Thai border. Bernard North took over from my father in that job, when he was only 22. The other day he told me very movingly how un-colonial, and unstuffy Harry was. How he treated everyone fairly and as an equal. Harry established long term friendships with his staff, and was in correspondence with them for years, until very recently. He had many great stories about those times. One of them was of John or me (I think it must have been John), refusing to go to bed when Dad had received a visit from the new Railways General manager. When asked why we wouldn’t go to bed, the answer was, oh you said “the general manager drinks like a fish”, and we haven’t seen him do that yet!

On Malayan independence, in 1957, we returned to Britain, and in 1958, Harry joined George Wimpey and the family moved to Kent. Harry worked at Wimpey for over 25 years, and had many adventures during that time. His job was estimating the bid price for very large international contracts. This involved going to the job location to see where to find the raw materials, how the transport would be managed, where the hundreds of workers would be housed, and so on. He traveled all over the world – to the Emirates for the huge Das island oil rigs, to Lebanon and Turkey for the Euphrates dam tender, to Romania for a giant irrigation project, Brazil, and many more remote and exotic locations. And of course to Peru, which made a huge impression on him when he saw Machu Pichu Inca city, and which he took his grandchildren back to many years later. In going through some papers at home I found a letter from Dad to mum, written from Oran in Algeria. In a note scribbled at the top, he wrote “ PS. I’ve been listening to tapes of F Sinatra esq. Which get me feeling very sentimental and missing you achingly. I do love you so much darling”. Once Dad got back from his travels, it was then a race to get the tender priced and submitted. He worked every Christmas day that I could remember, and always seemed to be working to a deadline. I never saw anyone work harder than Dad, and he did it almost all his working life.

Most of Dad’s career, all the calculating of prices was done manually by dozens of ‘comps girls with mechanical calculators like the one on the left. In the late 70’s he explored using computers to do that and developed of the first pieces of software for estimating. During the process he learned to program, and so in his 60s amazingly, in his third major career, he became a skilled and meticulous computer programmer and consultant

After his retirement from Wimpey, at the age of 63 he went to work full time as a software programming consultant. One of the first things he did was the database design for a large London Cab company. When he left that job, I mentioned the vacancy to one of my oldest friends M*chael Br*phy, and Mick applied for the job. I don’t think Harry knew Mick before this, but the day of the interview, in a greasy spoon cafe round the corner, Harry gave him a detailed briefing on the job, which enabled Mick to amaze the company with his detailed knowledge. And Mick got the job, which launched him on his successful IT career. That generous gesture was very typical of Harry and was an example of how he helped and mentored dozens of people during his career.

Round about that time, Gina’s Environmental publishing business was growing fast, and desperately needed an automated finance system to run the business. We talked about this in passing to Harry, and he offered to help. In his spare time, Harry wrote a complete and very sophisticated suite of software to manage the subscriptions business, and meticulously documented and maintained it. That code sat at the heart of Gina’s business for 25 years, and continued to run the subscriptions as the business grew. It was still there and being used when she sold the company to Michael Heseltine and the Haymarket press in 2004. It was one of the few examples I know of a computer program being created out of love, and it was a classic piece of code, much loved in return.

By now Harry and Joyce were in their 70s. Harry had always wanted to travel and take Joyce to India and South America, but her health was starting to fail, and they kept their traveling mostly to to Europe . But they loved touring about in France and Spain and the UK, and had done it ever since John and I were married and away. They traveled mostly without making any plans – just arriving in a town with the Michelin guide and hoping for the best. For the first time in his life Harry was not working, and was able to relax and take things easy.

Towards the end of that time,  Gina and I bought a small French farmhouse near Poitiers called La Rocheliere, and for the next 10 years, Joyce and Harry spent 6 weeks every spring there, and loved it dearly. It became their house more than ours, and it still reminds us of them whenever we go. His notes, instructions, piles of 2B pencils, and his meticulously organised desk are all still there and will be as long as we live.

But in 2006 Joyce became extremely ill, and the traveling had to stop. For the first 3-4 years after then, Harry became Joyce’s full-time carer. He worked his heart out 18 hours a day, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and managing support, taking over every item of running the house. Then fortunately our lovely carers took over and Harry could relax a bit again.

So Harry had a wonderful life. He was with the love of his life for 80 years. They had great adventures together, and although they faced danger, they ended up safe. With John and me and our wives and our children and grandchildren, they had a family they dearly loved and who loved them back.

And he had wonderful qualities which he passed down to all of us. He was the politest and most considerate man I have ever known. He was funny, really intelligent, loving, incredibly hard working, and very very generous. I have never known a finer man, and I know that I never will. I’ll miss him dreadfully, and I can hear his voice and see his smile every day.

Now both our parents are gone. But they won’t be alone. We”ll be placing their ashes together under the walnut tree in la Rocheliere in France and in the windswept cemetery in Yorkshire that you see in the photographs below. They will be together again and till the end of time. Two of the finest kindest people that ever lived.

His funeral will be held at St Margaret’s church, Halstead, Kent on the 19^th February at 1:45 for 2:00 pm, and all who knew and loved him are welcome to come to the service and to join us afterwards. Full details are shown below the photo – which is of Harry and Joyce at their 70th wedding anniversary, in 2013.

Funeral Arrangements

The funeral will be held at St Margaret’s Church, Halstead, Kent, at 1:45 for 2:00pm on Friday 19th February 2016.  There will be a reception following this for family, and friends at Halstead village hall, which is a short drive from the church.

Details and Google map links for both locations are given below.

Location Details
St Margaret’s Church
Church Rd
Halstead
Sevenoaks, Kent TN14 7HQ
Google Map location
Halstead Village Hall
Knockholt Rd
Sevenoaks
Kent
TN14 7EX
Google map location
Flowers:
If you would like to send flowers with the hearse, please contact Forget-me-not on 01689 853261, and mention the Harry McAughtry funeral.  If you are in the area, they are located next to the Funeral Directors in Crofton Road. Alternatively please make a donation to Oxfam or a charity of your choice.

Visiting:
If you would like to visit Harry one last time in the Chapel of rest, this will be possible on the morning of Friday 19th February, between 10:00 am and 12:00 am, by appointment with the Funeral Directors Francis Chappell  and sons on 01689 853277.  The Chapel of Rest is at their Farnborough premises, at:

332 Crofton Road
Locks Bottom
Orpington, Kent
BR6 8NW

Note: Click photo to enlarge – back button to return.  This now works for the photo above and prior photos.  Apologies for not noticing it was not enabled.

This was the first LE shot with my new D750, taken in February 2015. It was a 4 minute shot, with 16 stops of ND applied.

Note: Click photo to enlarge – back button to return.

I liked the way that the low evening sun lit up the gilded parts of the bridge and the statue on the far side. Taken with my Fuji X-T1 on a rickety Joby mini tripod. Given the circumstances, I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out.

Note: Click photo to enlarge – back button to return.