Canzuk the future?

[BlasterBates]

You may well be right and feel sorry that you may not be able join another club. But I didn't hear about this in the UK.

I think the UK isn't really talking about it, but where things start it's gaining traction.

I do hope one day you get your dream of joining another club, one that isn't a dictatorship.

What you mean is a very small number of rightwing nutcases in Australia.

This movement is only popular in Britain.

[darmstadt]

Basically what is happening is that Britain realises that is no longer a member of a club and is desperate to join another but none of them seem to be either much good or don't really want the UK as they're worried that they'll probably just leave again if the club doesn't change it's rules to suit the UK

[woohoo]

What you mean is a very small number of rightwing nutcases in Australia.

This movement is only popular in Britain.

I don't think it is popular in Britain, but it may be. Sorry, I read about it on a Canada group but there where Australians commenting.

Look if you want this to happen you need to make it happen. I can only point the way.

[Paddy]

A post-Brexit bloc of former colonies is the answer to a question no one asked | The Spinoff

CANZUK is touted by a number of politicians in Britain and appears to have strong support among Canadians politicians. In Australia and New Zealand political support has been harder to nail down, with National leader Simon Bridges of National and David Seymour of ACT cautiously lending moral support for the idea, especially in terms of free trade. Australia is cooler towards the proposal, with a backbench senator being CANZUK’s only apparent friend at a federal level. While polling appears to indicate strong support in principle amongst the general public, supporters of CANZUK itself are all over the place when it comes to trade and free movement.

Some suggest CANZUK is an economic union, others that it means a return to preferential trade, something that ceased to exist across the British Empire in the 1930s. Some even go so far as to argue for the exclusion of the much-hated European Union and sometimes even the United States. For Britain that would be economic suicide: the very reason why British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has put so much emphasis on getting a free trade deal with the European Union as that the trade bloc accounts for 45% of the UK’s exports. As a country, the United States is Britain’s single largest trading partner, taking 18% of the UK’s exports. The EU and US cannot be excluded and in reality, are the trade policy priority for Johnson’s government.

For Australia and New Zealand that means working towards bilateral free trade agreements as quickly as possible. That could be harder for us to achieve than it appears, especially given previous statements about the potential for high tariffs on agricultural exports to the UK in the event no deal is reached with the European Union. Our own trade negotiating teams are, rightly, focused on a bilateral agreement with the European Union. Britain is an additional opportunity. Again, the political reality for Britain is that trade deals with Canada, Australia and New Zealand are much more important in a political sense than they are in an economic sense. And since New Zealand already has free trade agreements with Australia and Canada, a trade deal with Britain gives us the CANZUK trifecta anyway, without the unnecessary pain of four-way negotiations.

Ending unfettered immigration to the United Kingdom, or at least the perception of it, was a primary driver for those who voted for Brexit. As much as the bureaucratic overhead of the European Union may have rankled, its lack of democratic processes and a general sense of despondency over Britain’s decline in the world, it was – to paraphrase the Daily Mail – stopping immigration what won it. It is impossible to imagine Britain acquiescing to a request for free movement, even from countries with populations that are a majority of English-speaking descendants of Britons. In any case, Australia has taken free movement off the table early in its negotiations with the United Kingdom.

Which in the end leaves very little for New Zealand out of any CANZUK proposal. Support for the idea might exist, largely due to nostalgia for the British Empire, but its benefits are small. We are likely to get a good free trade deal with Britain anyway, because politically it looks good for Boris Johnson’s government. More importantly, the daydreams of Empire 2.0 or a return to Empire preferential trade will only lock New Zealand into an ill-defined union that makes no sense given the massive opportunities across our region. Free trade is a force for good and ought to be promoted globally, not in an attempt to reanimate a long-dead empire.

[Whorty]

You all seem very unhappy about this Canzuk thing. I would have thought you would all be for it.

I'm starting to think you all just like complaining for the sake of it.

<yawn>

[Whorty]

You may well be right and feel sorry that you may not be able join another club. But I didn't hear about this in the UK.

I think the UK isn't really talking about it, but where things start it's gaining traction.

I do hope one day you get your dream of joining another club, one that isn't a dictatorship.

Reading your dribble on this you're starting to sound like Scooty and his market crashing postings. Are you and he one and the same? You both have the same intellect

[woohoo]

Reading your dribble on this you're starting to sound like Scooty and his market crashing postings. Are you and he one and the same? You both have the same intellect

Ahh im not getting all depressed and complaining about Britain and you cant take it. Classic whorty.

[Whorty]

Ahh im not getting all depressed and complaining about Britain and you cant take it. Classic whorty.

Who's complaining about Britain and can't take it*? Not me fella. You're the one obsessed with forming a pact with Canada, NZ and Oz (as if any of them would want us). First I've heard about it and sounds like some crazy right wing propaganda carp to me mate. Right up your street.

I've said all along that leaving the EU is bad for the UK, but personally it won't impact me. Which part of that do you still not understand?

* Not sure what 'it' is you're referring to. You won, get over it

[woohoo]

Who's complaining about Britain and can't take it*? Not me fella. You're the one obsessed with forming a pact with Canada, NZ and Oz (as if any of them would want us). First I've heard about it and sounds like some crazy right wing propaganda carp to me mate. Right up your street.

I've said all along that leaving the EU is bad for the UK, but personally it won't impact me. Which part of that do you still not understand?

* Not sure what 'it' is you're referring to. You won, get over it

Whorty, stop making this all about you. We are here to discuss not insult.

[Whorty]

Ahh im not getting all depressed and complaining about Britain and you cant take it. Classic whorty.

Whorty, stop making this all about you. We are here to discuss not insult.