About Nick Phipps

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So far Nick Phipps has created 249 blog entries.

Why we need a referendum to ratify Brexit

11 February 2019 Alasdair Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and is a member of the UK Trade Policy Observatory Parliamentary discussions on Brexit seem to be making no progress towards a decision that can command a majority and the timetable for future Parliamentary votes is uncertain. The only result of last week’s discussion in Brussels was an agreement to hold further talks later this month, a jaw-droppingly relaxed timetable in the circumstances. The Labour Party leadership has produced a statement with two objectives both of which are probably unattainable: a customs union with the EU in which the UK has a significant voice in the setting of EU trade policy, and a close relationship with the single market that falls short of membership. The Conservative Party is having internal discussions (with civil service support, a constitutional innovation) about the Malthouse Compromise, whose oxymoronic objectives are a new backstop that is not a backstop or an agreed withdrawal without a withdrawal agreement. Out of this unpromising material, however, some outcome must emerge before March 29. […]

By |2019-02-11T13:53:38+00:0011 February 2019|UK- EU|1 Comment
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Perils  of a “No Deal” Brexit:  Opinion 1/17 and the Case of CETA

6 February 2019 Professor Erika Szyszczak is a Professor of Law at the University of Sussex and Fellow of UKTPO. The UK Government and Parliament are mired in political manoeuvres on what the post-Brexit trade landscape should look like, but it is business as usual in the European Courts, with a salient reminder that a “No-Deal” Brexit could leave the UK waiting for many years for a legally certain trade agreement with the EU. […]

By |2019-02-06T10:02:36+00:006 February 2019|UK- EU|1 Comment
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End of an era: Why Brexit threatens London’s position as Europe’s financial powerhouse

4 February 2019 The Government’s presumption it can negotiate a special deal to prevent UK-based banks being frozen out from lucrative business within the EU after Brexit is highly likely to be proven wrong in time, according to our latest study: ‘Equivalence, mutual recognition in financial services and the UK negotiating position’.   The Briefing Paper by Dr Andy Tarrant, Dr Peter Holmes and Prof Dan Kelemen warns that the EU is almost certain to reject any approach to a future trade deal that seeks to retain UK-based banks access to EU markets while giving the UK the ability to vary its regulation away from that applied by the EU. […]

By |2019-02-04T12:05:31+00:004 February 2019|UK- EU|0 Comments
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A Free Trade Agreement will not solve the Irish border problem

17 January 2019 Dr Peter Holmes, Reader in  Economics at the University of Sussex, Director of Interanalysis and Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory Since the Government’s defeat in the House of Commons, there has been a flurry of comments, notably from Steve Baker arguing that Mrs May’s deal can be replaced by some form of Free Trade Agreement. One must immediately point out that the treaty basis of the Withdrawal Agreement does not include a long-term trade agreement. This can only be negotiated after Brexit. But even if it could be negotiated now, it would not solve the problem of the Irish Border. The UK and the EU in both the Good Friday Agreement and the Dec 2017 joint statement committed themselves not merely to barrier-free trade in goods with no hard border in Ireland, but to the preservation of an All-Island Economy. […]

By |2019-01-17T10:58:14+00:0017 January 2019|UK- EU|6 Comments
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Three-way voting paradoxes

16 January 2019 L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory This note supplements an article on ‘Organising a three-way referendum’ published on The Economist website (16th January 2019). It offers a worked example to show how the three main approaches to three-way ballots operate and some of the challenges they throw up. It reinforces Ken Arrow’s result that there is no ideal way of combining individual preferences to select one of three options. […]

By |2019-01-14T09:33:02+00:0014 January 2019|UK- EU|2 Comments
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Organising the ‘Second’ Referendum

17 December 2018 L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. The UKTPO exists to provide independent and objective advice on the economics and law of Brexit and trade policy. The question of whether to hold a ‘second’ referendum is essentially a political one. However, how to organise such a referendum is a technical question on which economists have something to offer. […]

By |2018-12-17T12:11:19+00:0017 December 2018|UK- EU|23 Comments
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The UK’s post-Brexit Trade Relationship with the European Union: Through a glass, darkly

10 December 2018 L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory  The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration are being presented as a means to end the uncertainty about the UK’s future relationship with Europe. But in an explainer for the ESRC’s UK in a Changing Europe, Professor L Alan Winters argues that this is not the case. Uncertainty will continue regardless of what happens to the Withdrawal Agreement. Briefly, he argues that, if the Withdrawal Agreement is approved by Parliament and the EU: The backstop it mandates requires a customs union between the UK and the EU and that most EU regulations for goods will apply in Northern Ireland. However, there is no regulatory alignment between the rest of the UK and the EU and so, if the backstop came into operation, there would be border formalities both in the Irish Sea and as UK goods entered the EU via any other route. Negotiating a trade agreement with the EU will take a lot longer than the 21 months allowed for it in the Withdrawal Agreement, not least because every EU member state has a veto over trade agreements. The Political Declaration [...]

By |2018-12-10T16:39:45+00:0010 December 2018|UK- EU|0 Comments
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The vulnerability of different parliamentary constituencies to Brexit economic shocks

10 December 2018 L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the economics of Brexit at the Observatory. Today we are publishing a study of the economic impact of ‘no deal’ and ‘soft’ Brexit scenarios on the 632 Parliamentary constituencies in Great Britain. It shows that calculating the effect of Brexit on the residents in an area gives a very different perspective from the more common calculation based on the jobs in that area. For example, a ‘no deal’ Brexit would imply a shock equivalent to losing some 42,400 jobs in the parliamentary constituency of Cities of London and Westminster. However, 41,250 of these jobs are held by people who live elsewhere. At the other extreme, Streatham may suffer a loss equivalent to 650 of its jobs, but around 2,250 of Streatham’s residents would lose their employment. […]

By |2018-12-10T14:57:15+00:0010 December 2018|UK- EU|6 Comments
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What should we make of the Government’s Brexit estimates?

30 November 2018 L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, Dr Michael Gasiorek, a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Peter Holmes, Reader in  Economics at the University of Sussex both fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. We welcome the Government’s estimates of the economic consequences of alternative Brexits. They are way overdue. The modelling was very competently done. But the assumptions made tended to favour the Government’s preferred position over other alternatives. On Tuesday, the UK Government released a set of cross-Departmental estimates of the possible economic costs of different Brexit options. They were based on the Government’s own modelling, which uses a technique known as a Computable General Equilibrium modelling and is based on the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) consortium’s world model and dataset. The aim is to model (very approximately) the important linkages in an economy over a medium to long-term horizon and to assess the possible impact of changes in trade policy on the economy. (Short-term modelling, over a five year period, was simultaneously released by the Bank of England, but we do not discuss it here). The modelling approach is relatively [...]

By |2018-11-30T12:37:50+00:0030 November 2018|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments
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Environmental non-regression in the Withdrawal Agreement: forcing the EU’s hand on the Level Playing Field

21 November 2018 Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. Even if the draft Withdrawal Agreement is ultimately rejected, it provides more clarity on what the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) want in future relationship negotiations. Notably, it has prompted the EU to develop its call for a ‘level playing field’ in the areas of environmental and labour standards, State Aid and competition policy into a set of binding commitments now agreed by the UK Government. This blog examines the requirements for environmental standards and regulation. The EU has already indicated that it will seek ‘Level Playing Field’ commitments in any agreement, including a ‘Canada-style’ deal. These environmental commitments will likely comprise a minimum standard that the EU will require in any negotiated future relationship. […]

By |2018-11-21T14:10:54+00:0021 November 2018|UK- EU|3 Comments
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