CANZUK Bloc

[StobieWan]

I think that the Poms are in trouble at the moment with the double hammering of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. So they won't bring as much to the table as first thought.

Their economy has slumped, with a shrinkage of 9.9% in 2020, believed to be the worse since 1709. Their economy suffered pretty badly during the great depression of the 1930s and worse after WW2, taking decades to recover. In fact I don't think that they really fully recovered. It was only recently that they made the final payment on their Lend Lease bill from WW2.

Whilst they appear to have a couple of small increases in the last 2 quarters, the full effects of Brexit are only just starting to emerge with the impact of the hard borders and all the associated bureaucracy and costs to businesses and the economy. I would suggest that this along with Scottish and Northern Irish anger at being pulled out of the EU against their will, probably could lead to the breakup of the UK. If this does indeed come to pass, all that will be left will be the Poms and maybe the Welsh, but they too may want their independence from the Poms after 1,000 years of subjugation and assimilation.

Then what does that leave us? Well definitely no UK in CANZUK and a somewhat diminished Pommy economy. CANZ would then have to ask the question that is having the Poms in the relationship really going to be worthwhile? Given their history over the last 60 years, they appear to be fairweather friends. Also CANZ are already linked in the CTPPA and IIRC, the RCEP. Finally the Poms have to understand that they will be coming to us cap in hand, not the other way around.

UK economy suffered record annual slump in 2020

The size of the economy shrank by 9.9% in 2020 as coronavirus restrictions hit output, figures show.

www.bbc.com

We'd still likely be the 5th of 6th biggest economy in the world though so, yeah, we're taking a hammering and our predicted bounce back will be about half the ten percent drop we're facing, that parks us at what, a 1.7th economy.

As to the assertions that the UK will break up, nope, not happening - Northern Ireland is a net drain on the UK exchequer and everyone in NI knows that. There's little appetite to join the South basically barring the RC minority. As for Wales, same deal in terms of economic impact. That would actually be worsened by the repatriation of a lot of regionally allocated jobs to do with defence and infrastructure.

Scotland, different kettle of fish, bigger economy that for the last 30 years or so due to oil revenues and more recently due to subsidised renewables has been in the black. Worst case, Scotland pulls the plug leaving England, Wale and Ireland as a 1.2Tn economy more or less.

[Edit for clarity]

 

[StobieWan]

I'm grateful for you to add some country details, as it helps greatly.

I'm still not sure why those countries would be vetoing the UK joining. It is not situated in the Pacific but it has the fig-leaf of territory (Pitcairn Islands) to avoid any precedents being set. More importantly it is another major world economy (alongside Japan). Just because the UK mainland isn't in Asia doesn't mean there couldn't be increased trade. We can all see how much trade China does even with countries on the other side of the world, and if friction with EU trade continues UK companies will look to work more closely with other countries.

The UK would also be the first permanent member of the UNSC in the organisation. CPTPP isn't a political union but UK membership could give existing partners greater ability to lobby the UK on foreign policy and defence matters. That's nothing to be sneezed at.

Whilst taking into account all of the above, the UK is not a current/potential superpower, nor does it see a need to assert control over other countries for its own security. It also does not have any particularly heavily-subsidised or super competitive manufacturing/agricultural bases that could take away jobs from CPTPP members. That makes the prospect of UK membership relatively benign.

The UK’s bid to join CPTPP is generating momentum - Policy Exchange

Away from the fraught endgame of the Brexit negotiations, there has been positive news in UK trade in the last few weeks. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss added to the growing portfolio of UK trade agreements by securing a deal with Mexico on 15 December, following similar deals with...

policyexchange.org.uk

This article from December pointed out that at least 7 of the 11 CPTPP members supported the UK joining, which suggested that at least some of American states were included.

It is correct that the UK is not currently negotiating trade deals with Malaysia and Brunei. However, the UK has pretty strong relations with Brunei, and my understanding that these were expected to continue as we left the EU.

Ties with Malaysia may not be quite as robust, but I've only seen positive news about further engagement with London and no obvious political or economic rivalry. Also since the UK has left the EU there would be scope to discuss renewed palm oil imports, with the UK previously having to follow the EU ban.

In short, even if the UK was not the most optimal new member for CPTPP, it would be a benefit. There's no hard cap on the number of people that can be in CPTPP, nor does the accession process for one country stop others from joining at the same time.



If it took until 2026 then so be it, but I think it could be sooner than that, not least with Japan's open support for the UK joining and it taking over leadership this year.



In that case I think the chances of UK membership are better than I originally thought, because either the UK will agree to CPTPP's position or it won't. If there aren't negotiations as such, rather a set of things to agree to, it makes the process much simpler. Given that the UK has already got FTAs agreed with the majority of CPTPP members and there being a reasonable chance of getting them agreed with Australia and New Zealand in the next few years (Boris will want more political wins and won't worry about giving some concessions), the distance between the UK and CPTPP could end up being fairly low irrespective of the application to join.

Indeed - the deal with Japan was marginally worse than the one the EU had as it included firmer terms regarding state aid but that was accepted, partly I think, in the eagerness to announce a deal of any sort. There's usually a clause in most of the trade deals the EU writes to insist that any more favourable terms negotiated with a 3rd party country are conferred to the EU deal automatically so this "better deal" concept may be a Chimera of sorts in many cases.

As is, we're now recruiting more civil servants for UK borders, customs and excise than the EU employs for all 27 member states.

Woop.

 

[John Fedup]

Maybe the EU should consider more personnel towards border enforcement as opposed to customs and excise. Willing to bet extra personnel for border enforcement in the UK isn’t being objected to.

 

[ngatimozart]

We'd still likely be the 5th of 6th biggest economy in the world though so, yeah, we're taking a hammering and our predicted bounce back will be about half the ten percent drop we're facing, that parks us at what, a 1.7th economy.

As to the assertions that the UK will break up, nope, not happening - Northern Ireland is a net drain on the UK exchequer and everyone in NI knows that. There's little appetite to join the South basically barring the RC minority. As for Wales, same deal in terms of economic impact. That would actually be worsened by the repatriation of a lot of regionally allocated jobs to do with defence and infrastructure.

Scotland, different kettle of fish, bigger economy that for the last 30 years or so due to oil revenues and more recently due to subsidised renewables has been in the black. Worst case, Scotland pulls the plug leaving England, Wale and Ireland as a 1.2Tn economy more or less.

[Edit for clarity]

Ah but us colonials have a clear and firmly jaundiced view especially after a certain one day cricket match at Lords

Be that as it may, I think that there is still an overly optimistic view of the UK's economic situation after both Brexit and Covid-19. The Brexit impacts are only just starting and won't be apparent for a while. When I read reports of empty trucks returning to the UK from the continent, and London financial markets moving to the continent or New York, that is of concern. The truck thing will sort itself out but the extra cost to the economy because of the increased bureaucracy will be substantial. The financial markets are a different kettle

BBC News - Brexit: How much disruption has there been so far?

Brexit: How much disruption has there been so far?

It has been a month since the rules changed in the UK's relationship with the EU.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[StobieWan]

Maybe the EU should consider more personnel towards border enforcement as opposed to customs and excise. Willing to bet extra personnel for border enforcement in the UK isn’t being objected to.

Why ? It's just pushing more bits of paper around that we didn't use to need to process ? The generally accepted view is that post Brexit we'd need to process 2-300 million extra customs declarations a year. A lorry load of fresh fish exported to the EU can now require 60 +pages of paperwork vs pre-Brexit. Quick worked example, I feed stray cat, he likes cat milk, the cheapest quality brand is a German one - how much does it now cost ? No idea, because the firm have literally decided it's not worth the process of exporting to the UK. I can't find any stocks on any UK supplier website.

As a consumer, I'm suddenly looking at less choice and less competition.

And as a taxpayer, I'm paying for another 50K people to enforce that lack of choice and competition in order to prevent free trade and commerce with our largest and geographically proximate trading bloc.

None of this is contributing to my physical security - none of these new hires are out there in RIB's with GMPG's intercepting drug smugglers or terrorists - that's business as usual. All of these new hires are just pushing bits of paper back and forth so that goods we always used to be able to buy and sell can be bought and sold.

As I said. Woop.

 

[StobieWan]

Ah but us colonials have a clear and firmly jaundiced view especially after a certain one day cricket match at Lords

Be that as it may, I think that there is still an overly optimistic view of the UK's economic situation after both Brexit and Covid-19. The Brexit impacts are only just starting and won't be apparent for a while. When I read reports of empty trucks returning to the UK from the continent, and London financial markets moving to the continent or New York, that is of concern. The truck thing will sort itself out but the extra cost to the economy because of the increased bureaucracy will be substantial. The financial markets are a different kettle

BBC News - Brexit: How much disruption has there been so far?

Brexit: How much disruption has there been so far?

It has been a month since the rules changed in the UK's relationship with the EU.

www.bbc.co.uk

None of which makes any of what I have written less plausible - the United Kingdom will likely remain united - with the potential cliff hanger of Scotland. If the UK did indeed disintegrate, you'd have an England as maybe a 1.2 tn economy left as the economic power house of the island and the smaller new-born countries of Wales (which currently is a principality) and Ireland wondering where all the central funding went.

The united kingdom exists simply and largely because England decided a long time ago that having secure land borders was a Good Thing -and our economy shrinking or failing to rebound in certain ways isn't going to change that. Scotland has enough of a case to persuade itself that it'd be better off out if it chose - Wales and NI don't.

I think Scotland's case is muddied by the renewables subsidy - Hollyrood have a rubber stamp on wind farms that they can wield unsupervised - even if the power generation isn't economically viable due to distance for instance. Post separation, Scotland might find a pile of issues, but yes, they may choose to separate. NI and Wales, nope.


Yes, the UK may be worse off than the projected figures - but if you're a small part of the UK and can't demonstrate any sector of industry which is viable independent of the UK *and* your largest market is the country you share a land border with, declaring independence may be a hard sell to the electorate is what I'm trying to get across here.

 

[KiwiRob]

@Musashi_kenshin,

CPTPP remains the centerpiece of any future US reengagement and Japan will see to it that it’s terms are not supplanted by a wholly new framework — this means no chance for London to get obstinate or for talks to get deadlocked is zero— it’s literally, take it or leave it. The CPTTP terms for new members are take it or leave it (with further concessions to US the only exception).

If we have to make concessions like investor state dispute tribunals to get the US into CPTTP then I'd rather we didn't allow them in. It's either join within the current framework or don't join at all. The UK is desperate they will join without causing any ructions, the US on the other hand will not.

 

[old faithful]

We would have to get Canada competitive in Cricket and Rugby for CANZUK to be successful lol.

 

[ngatimozart]

If we have to make concessions like investor state dispute tribunals to get the US into CPTTP then I'd rather we didn't allow them in. It's either join within the current framework or don't join at all. The UK is desperate they will join without causing any ructions, the US on the other hand will not.

I definitely agree. I read the text of the TPPA and had followed the US machinations prior to the final text being released. It definitely was not in NZ's long term advantage because the US pharmaceutical industry was trying very hard to get rid of our government pharmaceutical procurement agency, most likely because it was to good at getting a good deal out of them. They also tried to get the TPPA nations to agree to seven years of bespoke pharmaceuticals before going to generic brands, instead of the internationally accepted five years, they further wanted to stop the use of generic brands.

The US also wanted to extend copyright on deceased authors works from the international norm of 50 years after the author's death to 100 years, which was a pure money grab by the US entertainment industry. I think at one stage they tried for 150 years. I also believe that there were issues with the financial services component as well.

 

[John Fedup]

With the US in, expect a continuous stream of disputes by US special interests resulting in tariffs being imposed until the particular dispute is resolved. Good luck getting the money back. Canada has seen this play out under NAFTA and the USMC will be the same or worse.

 

[swerve]

The US copyright grab started with Hollywood lobbying. Extending copyright on films & recorded music was a huge gift to big firms which had bought the rights to stuff which was nearing the end of copyright at bargain prices, then lobbied hard (& paid big contributions to political campaigns) to get it extended. Corrupt as hell.

Publishers of written works then saw their chance: get the government to make your (cheap) assets valuable, in exchange for giving money to politicians.

The US also has a lot of patent trolls which have been trying the same trick with medicines, in alliance with the (relatively) legitimate pharmaceutical industry.

The point of patents is (1) to encourage people to develop useful things then (2) make them available to everyone to make & use freely. A temporary monopoly is granted by the state because the adverse effects of that are seen as being outweighed by the public benefit of encouraging new ideas & products & making them public. Making designs/formulae etc. public is the price of the temporary monopoly. You make it public & the state temporarily protects your sole use of it, while if you keep it secret you have no recourse against anyone who reverse engineers it or steals your secret. The lobbyists, & those who are trying to use copyright to protect designs as a way of overriding patents, are trying to subvert the system by using the power of the state to enrich individuals & corporations by extending monopolies on already owned assets, for which the public benefit argument does not apply.

The weird thing is that all this is supported by most of the US right, which in theory is opposed to the use of state power in this way.

 

[swerve]

We would have to get Canada competitive in Cricket and Rugby for CANZUK to be successful lol.

The Canucks used to have a half decent rugby team, one that could take on the Italians & Romanians (also sadly gone downhill), & on a good day the Argentineans, Scots, etc. A pity they've faded.

 

[StobieWan]

I definitely agree. I read the text of the TPPA and had followed the US machinations prior to the final text being released. It definitely was not in NZ's long term advantage because the US pharmaceutical industry was trying very hard to get rid of our government pharmaceutical procurement agency, most likely because it was to good at getting a good deal out of them. They also tried to get the TPPA nations to agree to seven years of bespoke pharmaceuticals before going to generic brands, instead of the internationally accepted five years, they further wanted to stop the use of generic brands.

The US also wanted to extend copyright on deceased authors works from the international norm of 50 years after the author's death to 100 years, which was a pure money grab by the US entertainment industry. I think at one stage they tried for 150 years. I also believe that there were issues with the financial services component as well.

They're doing something similar with the UK in terms of drug prices so be sure and tell them to jog on!

 

[Todjaeger]

The weird thing is that all this is supported by most of the US right, which in theory is opposed to the use of state power in this way.

Nothing weird about it, unfortunately. Having followed US politics for more than 30 years now (to the degree I can stomach them) I have noted that there is often quite a bit of difference between the claimed ideals vs. actual practices. With that in mind, there is nothing surprising about one faction being quite comfortable with the use of state power to enrich (already wealthy) individuals and/or corporations. I would find it more shocking TBH if that state power was instead wielded to aid/enrich those not already wealthy.

I should also point out that this faction also often is portrayed as being for limited/small gov't, reduced regulation, and not extending the tendrils of power, oversight and regulation into the lives of ordinary citizens. However, this portrayal rapidly falls away in the face of something like social issues which the faction does wish to use state power to control.

Please note that I am not saying the other side is any better. Where things IMO tend to get dangerous is how often people in the US get tied to, or focused on, just one or two issues which are important to them, and then ignore everything else. This leads to ignoring the forest for the sake of focusing on one or two specific trees...

 

[John Fedup]

“Claimed ideals and actual practices”, another example of that is the moral religious factions of the GOP supporting Trump.
Focusing on one or two issues, a long-standing problem in politics, “hot button” issues allow for easy manipulation of the electorate.

 

[Todjaeger]

“Claimed ideals and actual practices”, another example of that is the moral religious factions of the GOP supporting Trump.
Focusing on one or two issues, a long-standing problem in politics, “hot button” issues allow for easy manipulation of the electorate.

I do not wish to take away or divert from the topic at hand, but I do want to correct what I see as a misperception. For some (quite a sizable number IMO) they have either singular or dual issues of importance, and everything else to them is either unimportant or just does not exist. As long as "their" person supports or favours "their" views on whatever the issue is, they will either back "their" person on all other issues, or just ignore any/all problems as unimportant.

 

[John Fedup]

So getting back on topic, will possible UK admission into CPTTP end further discussion on CANZUK? If the US comes in but the UK doesn’t I would imagine CANZUK would become more critical to the UK.

 

[Todjaeger]

So getting back on topic, will possible UK admission into CPTTP end further discussion on CANZUK? If the US comes in but the UK doesn’t I would imagine CANZUK would become more critical to the UK.

Frankly I would rather have a formal 5Eyes bloc, though I admit certain nations' would need to get their own houses in order first. Given the last four years, and with more internal troubles likely to come...

When discussing any of these trade, diplomatic and/or military blocs, I think it important to consider what the objective of the bloc is, and then how different members contribute to achieving that objective as well as what benefits they receive from participating. With that in mind, I am uncertain how valuable the UK would be to what is principally an agreement between nations in the Pacific, while the UK is quite literally on the other side of the world and no longer maintains a significant presence in the Pacific.

EDIT: side note and curious thought bubble, possible caused by illness. What would it take to have the Canadian flag changed (again) so that it once again included some blue? As it stands, all 5Eyes nations except Canada have RWB national colours, whilst Canada's current colours are just RW, following the change to the maple leaf from the Union Jack.

 

[John Fedup]

Frankly I would rather have a formal 5Eyes bloc, though I admit certain nations' would need to get their own houses in order first. Given the last four years, and with more internal troubles likely to come...

When discussing any of these trade, diplomatic and/or military blocs, I think it important to consider what the objective of the bloc is, and then how different members contribute to achieving that objective as well as what benefits they receive from participating. With that in mind, I am uncertain how valuable the UK would be to what is principally an agreement between nations in the Pacific, while the UK is quite literally on the other side of the world and no longer maintains a significant presence in the Pacific.

EDIT: side note and curious thought bubble, possible caused by illness. What would it take to have the Canadian flag changed (again) so that it once again included some blue? As it stands, all 5Eyes nations except Canada have RWB national colours, whilst Canada's current colours are just RW, following the change to the maple leaf from the Union Jack.

What would it take to get blue, a &ucking miracle. I could never understand why the red bands weren’t blue, sea to sea, Pacific to Atlantic, seems logical ( to me at least). The design could have included curved upper portions to encompass the Arctic Ocean. Perhaps PM Pearson saw two colours as a more economical solution. BTW, Canada’ s decline started with his designation of senior as is heir to the Liberal party leadership. Fifty years later, we get junior. Thanks a lot Lester!...rant off.

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

I hope people don't mind me resurrecting this thread, but people may not have noticed that CPTPP members agreed a few weeks ago to allow formal talks for the UK to join.

CPTPP trading bloc nations agree to allow UK to start joining process

Member nations of the 11-country CPTPP have agreed to allow the UK to begin the process of joining the trading bloc, a Japanese minister says.

www.cityam.com