We're technically covering two weeks as I was on my holidays. Only a few things happened of significance in the last fortnight, but they were very intriguing developments indeed. A big one was Nissan committing to continue their UK production and even upgrade it to form a super-plant in Sunderland, following meetings at No. 10. So what changed their mind? The second big one was that after being derailed by the region of Wallonia just days before, the EU and Canada signed CETA. What happened in those few days? Thirdly, after previously suggesting that Brexit would cause massive trade disruption and negotiations with the WTO would be really difficult, the head of the WTO Robert Azevedo last week said that Brexit would not cause any trade disruption and that the process would be "fast and smooth". Why did he change his tune?

Elsewhere, Tony Blair called for a second referendum, John McDonnell said breakfast instead of Brexit three times in one speech, Mark Carney got the backing of the PM and Apple increased the cost of Macbooks.

The Nissan development is an interesting one. With a variety of people speculating exactly what might have been said. Faisal Islam believes that this is a sign that we are staying in the customs union. Ryan Bourne at the IEA thinks that the government may be looking for sector-based agreements. Richard North argues the development is the clearest sign yet that the PM intends to keep us in the single market and that "hard Brexit" is off the table.

The government began to crack under pressure to reveal exactly what was promised, with Greg Clark firstly telling us that there was no cheque book involved in the assurances. Clark later had a rough time with Andrew Marr, further revealing that a promise had been made of no tariff increases for the automotive industry. The signals then, point towards a sector-by-sector approach to negotiations. Rowena Mason writes in the Guardian of Nick Clegg's assertion that this approach could lead to a big bill for the taxpayer. Wolfgang Munchau says in the FT that the Nissan decision is a clear sign of an interim period in the Brexit process, showing us the path forward.

​​A few interesting articles about the pound, not from last week, but relevant in the current debate over whether the devaluation is good or bad. George Soros penned a piece in the Guardian before the referendum correctly predicting that the pound would fall, and argued that we would all be worse off for it. Bernard Connolly, the economist who resisted the creation of the Euro whilst working at the European Commission, wrote a rebuttal of Soros' piece for MoneyWeek on the 22nd June arguing that while the pound will fall, it would not be a bad thing. More recently, the Bruegel group produced an article for CapX looking at the various perspectives on the issue. All worth a read.

Donald Tusk implied in a speech recently that if we reach the end of the A50 negotiations and are not happy, we could end the process there and essentially stop Brexit. The legalities of this are very unclear, as Jolyon Maugham spells out over on his blog.

Finally, Brexiteer Sam Hooper has a brilliant rant on his blog. Arguing that whilst he does not regret his decision, the politicians and poltical system of this generation are far from suited to make the best of the Brexit.

Normal service resumed next week.

alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk

@GMCC_Alex

Last week, tensions rose in the House of Commons as cross-party MPs called for a parliamentary vote on the terms of the negotiations; Labour used it's opposition day to talk Brexit and gave David Davis 170 questions; Nicola Sturgeon said that a second Scottish independence referendum is now closer than ever, and that Scotland may seek to do it's own trade deal with the EU; The boss of Nissan visited the PM to talk about the future; Philip Hammond continued to urge caution, and finally, Donald Tusk said that it will be "hard Brexit or no Brexit", and even suggested we could walk away from Brexit if the negotiations don't go well.

Richard North gets the top spot this week, brilliantly exposing the general uselessness and misleading nature of the term Hard brexit, and why the media really isn't helping the debate to move forward. North is an outspoken, some might say cantankerous Brexiteer, but has done some of the best work on the subject and is consistently months ahead of the media, so is very worth keeping up with.

Ian Dunt on the other hand, is an equally outspoken remainer and anti-Brexiteer. This week Dunt argues that David Davis is driving us off a cliff edge following his performance in the commons last Monday.

The pound keeps on falling, and there is an alarming amount of disagreement about whether this is a good or a bad thing. Duncan Weldon explains how the value of the pound is now based on politics, not economics, and is now the primary opposition to the government. Aditya Chakrabortty argues that the falling pound punctures the delusion that Brexit will Flourish, whilst Roger Bootle and John Mills suggest that we should celebrate the fall of the pound, and try to keep it low.

Before the referendum, the details of the Norway option and the potential for Britain to join EFTA was a regular talking point, but has since vacated the debate almost entirely. This great piece by Nat O'Connor at EFTA4UK combats this, and looks at the possibility of EFTA being the basis for a new EU-UK relationship. A must read.

​​The IndyRef 2 news cannot be ignored. Steve Peers breaks down the possibilities and legal implications on his excellent law blog; Bagehot explains in The Economist how the announcement gets Nicola Sturgeon out of a tight spot; and Iain Martin does not hold back in his view that Sturgeon's answer to hard Brexit is to wreck the Scottish Economy.

​alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk
@GMCC_Alex

A slow week following the Conservative Party Conference. The revolt against "hard Brexit" started, with a cross-party coalition coming together to demand a parliamentary vote on the opening terms of the Article 50 negotiations. The Pound suffered a flash crash, falling by over 6% and recovering by 4.76% in a span of under two minutes. The crash was blamed on rogue trading algorithms picking up on Francois Hollande's comment that if we want hard Brexit, we will get hard Brexit. The Home Office discovered that 80% of the 3.6 million EU citizens living in the UK will have residency rights by 2019, and offered the rest amnesty and the right to stay permanently. There was no official line from the government on this, but it would sure be big news if there was.

Steve Peers writes for politics.co.uk that "Liberal Leavers and Remainers must unite against hard Brexit". Here, Peers looks at how the Brexit vote is perhaps being hijacked as a mandate for illiberal policies by the government, but argues against those who deny these views did not exist in the Leave campaign at all.

Conservative MEP Vicky Ford points to the examples of Lichtenstein and Belgium, and challenges the view that unrestricted free movement is is a red line for single market participation. I've never been quite sure about this argument, although the precedent is definitely there. Even so, Richard North has been exploring this idea on his blog for some time, and released a monograph on the subject back in July. 

Christopher Booker writes in the Telegraph about "What Theresa May did and very carefully did not say about Brexit." Booker digs into the details of the speech, finding that what wasn't said is more important that what was, and that the PM's stance is not as hard as most think.

As I said, a slow week. To make up for it here are some follow recommendations for all of you on Twitter. There are people from all Brexit camps here, some with whom I often agree and others that I often don't.

Roland Smith
Richard North
Pete North
David Allen Green
Ben Kelly
Hosuk Lee Makiyama
Raoul Ruparel
Samuel Lowe
Ian Dunt
Guy Verhofstadt
Steve Peers
Matthew Holehouse

I'll add more as I think of them.

'Til next time.

alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk
@GMCC_Alex

Brexit day at the Tory party conference dominated last week's headlines. What did we learn?

Theresa May's speech, first of all. The PM announced that article 50 will be triggered by the end of March 2017, marking the starting point on the Brexit timeline. The intention it seems is to have wrapped up the negotiations before the EU elections scheduled for mid-2019 (there certainly wouldn't be much point in electing new British MEPs).  The immediate reaction to the announcement was a further fall in the value of the pound to a 31-year low against the dollar, and the FTSE 100 - consisting mostly of foreign companies - rose to a 16-month high.

The second big announcement was "The Great Repeal Bill", which repeals the 1972 European Communities Act on the day of the exit and converts all EU laws and treaty obligations currently affecting the UK (the EU aquis)  into British law. The Telegraph separately reported this as "taking an axe to EU law" and "a bold move by the PM" when it isn't really either of those things. In fact, it is precisely the opposite of "taking an axe to EU laws", it is taking EU laws and turning them into our laws as to ensure consistency for business, meaning as the PM stated that: "The same rules and laws will apply to them after Brexit as they did before". The idea is that once we are out, we can then start looking at what we might want to change or get rid of. If anything, it is confirmation that the government is looking for a smooth transition and views Brexit as a process rather than an event. This is a good thing.

Of course though, as Ian Dunt bluntly puts it: "May's big EU announcement is just admin". This "repeal bill" was always going to need to happen for Brexit to mean Brexit in any sense. Without repealing the EU Communities Act we can never regain the sovereignty promised in the referendum campaign and begin making our own laws again. I guess it depends on your point of view; for enthusiastic leavers like Dan Hannan for example, "The Great Repeal Bill" is much more than symbolic: it is the first big commitment to Brexit. 

I am now convinced this whole "hard" and "soft" Brexit thing is the most useless and obfuscating development in the entire pre- and post-referendum period. The papers jumped all over the place after May's speech about how we are obviously now heading for a hard Brexit, when nobody can pin down exactly what this means. What's worse is that the media did this when May stated her own definitions of "hard" - a conscious decision to reject trade with Europe - and "soft" - some form of continued membership - and labelled it a false dichotomy, which it totally is. I might add that these are not the definitions most go by, which just highlights how stupid these terms are: they mean completely different things to different people. William Hague argues this in the Telegraph and asks us not to fall into the trap of thinking in such simplistic terms. May also ruled out both the Norway and the Swiss options, which again tells us precisely nothing on its own. This was never going to be a case where five brown envelopes were put on a table labeled option 1 - 5 and we pick one, although I must say I preferred it when we were discussing 5 well-defined options rather than two rubbish ones. Richard North brilliantly exposes the uselessness of trying to put nice labels on our exit options, his take from the speech being that "Mrs May rejects everything - and nothing".  

Phillip Hammond took a much more cautious approach than the PM. He was clear that he expected economic strife ahead and that there would be stimulus to tackle it. His speech was perhaps intended to balance the scales back towards reality - that yes this is really happening and no it ain't gonna be easy.

All in all I would take three broad conclusions from last week. Firstly, Brexit is happening and it will begin in March next year; secondly, the government understands that there should be no big bang - there must be consistency for business and the changes must happen step-by-step; and thirdly, the Chancellor knows that the exit process will have a negative impact on the economy and is prepared to spend to mitigate this. 

Despite this, we don't know a whole lot more than we did last week, but at least the timer has been set and a very broad course plotted. I had a whole bunch of non-Tory conference related stuff to talk about this week but for now I will leave you with this cartoon from Morten Morland of The Times because it's great. See you next week.

​alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk
@GMCC_Alex