Brexit: The Last Stand (No name calling)

Billy86

Falcon L wrote: »

That's like saying "I'll kick your ass". All very well if you got the ass on it's own. Spain is part of a union that the UK is leaving. Could they cripple the whole union? I very much doubt it. :cool:

Come to think of it, in a roundabout way starting a war with Spain is probably the most efficient way for the UK to rejoin the EU, though whether it would do so under the name Reino Unido, Royaume-Uni or Großbritannien would remain to be seen.

catbear

I always thought that european unity would be solidified by an external force but it seems the UKs departure is doing the job.

Since the cromwellian conquest Irelands access to the world has been suppressed by Britain, what Britain now discards is ours for the taking.

Capt'n Midnight

steddyeddy wrote: »

The Telegraph just printed a lovely article stating that Britain's navy isn't up to Falklands standards but "it could still cripple Spain". This from a paper who described Martin McGuinness as a warmonger.

What exactly would the Royal Navy do ?

If it's not a shooting war then it'll probably play out like the Cod War which the UK lost. If it's a shooting war then how long would the Royal Navy last without air cover ?

A reminder the ship that won the Falklands war , HMS Hermes, retired recently, after spending 30 years serving the Indian Navy. In fact had that war started a few months later the UK would not have been able to do anything as HMS Invincible had been sold to Australia and Hermes was due to be decommissioned, also the Vulcans didn't have many hours left on .their airframes.

NIMAN

Jez, this Brexit has taken a bad turn, we're talking about war with Europe now!

catbear

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

A reminder the ship that won the Falklands war , HMS Hermes, retired recently, after spending 30 years serving the Indian Navy.

Actually what won the war was a single long range bombing mission that if it had failed to hit the airport the argentinian ground forces would have had the back up they needed to repel the Brits.

steddyeddy

The Sun going with the threatening angle again. Less than a few weeks after they were criticising McGuinness.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3235404/britain-gibraltar-spain-war-brexit/

Thargor

catbear wrote: »

Actually what won the war was a single long range bombing mission that if it had failed to hit the airport the argentinian ground forces would have had the back up they needed to repel the Brits.

Brilliant story, brilliant book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Vulcan-607-Rowland-White/0552152293

RDM_83 again

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

What exactly would the Royal Navy do ?

If it's not a shooting war then it'll probably play out like the Cod War which the UK lost. If it's a shooting war then how long would the Royal Navy last without air cover ?

A reminder the ship that won the Falklands war , HMS Hermes, retired recently, after spending 30 years serving the Indian Navy. In fact had that war started a few months later the UK would not have been able to do anything as HMS Invincible had been sold to Australia and Hermes was due to be decommissioned, also the Vulcans didn't have many hours left on .their airframes.

I'm not sure how many subs they have operational at the minute but the Royal Navy boats can carry Tomohawks and have been used to stand long offshore and launch cruise missiles.

The UK's forces are probably not that capable of operating particularly effectively without American support but they shouldn't be dismissed just because its fashionable to sh-t on everything British because of Brexit, they have a budget nearly 4 times that of Spain for example

FrancieBrady

RDM_83 again wrote: »

I'm not sure how many subs they have operational at the minute but the Royal Navy boats can carry Tomohawks and have been used to stand long offshore and launch cruise missiles.

The UK's forces are probably not that capable of operating particularly effectively without American support but they shouldn't be dismissed just because its fashionable to sh-t on everything British because of Brexit, they have a budget nearly 4 times that of Spain for example

America wouldn't let them leave Portsmouth.
The Brexit thing has just got surreal.

RDM_83 again

FrancieBrady wrote: »

America wouldn't let them leave Portsmouth.
The Brexit thing has just got surreal.

Its in the best traditions of crazy arm chair general hypothetical situations , on that note though if Trump lasts why wouldn't he be on board with bombing a bunch of people who're like basically Mexicans

I do think a lot of the harder line put forward in some of the EU figures statements will reduce considerably though.

For example the whole intelligence sharing thing is a bargaining chip, many of the european countries simply can't carry out the sort of work GCHQ does without being pulled in front of their courts.
Its deeply cynical to put this forward but it could be a win win for the UK, if the EU is inflexible about a quid quo pro for British intelligence data they reduce sharing, more attacks in europe, increased successful terrorism attacks on the mainland = increased euro-skepticism.

I genuinely don't think the UK's negotiation position is as bad as many put forward the EU puts forward unified messages but there is a lot of division. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are all on potential collision courses with the EU at the minute and if the coming summers refugee wave leads to more high handedness from Germany there will be even more pressures

Capt'n Midnight

catbear wrote: »

Actually what won the war was a single long range bombing mission that if it had failed to hit the airport the argentinian ground forces would have had the back up they needed to repel the Brits.

The logistics were impressive. It's still by far the longest bombing raid in harms way.

( technically B52's flew further to Iraq, but they could have flown from a base in Saudi. Also dropping a cruise missile with a 1,000km range just doesn't compare to flying over an enemy airfield, and to be pedantic the could have fired cruise missiles off the back of a truck )

But at the end of the day they put just ONE bomb on the runway. And it was repaired within 24 hours.


The Argentine air force probably should have put fast jets there earlier. They should probably tried a massed attack to overwhelm the fleet's defences instead of piecemeal attacks. Lots of what ifs.


BTW those who think the Royal Navy would well against Spain could well remember that Argentina sunk six ships even though they were operating from bases over 700Km away and had only a few minutes in the target area.

A four-year-old told me this joke today and he thought it was hilarious.

Kid: Knock, knock
Me: Who's there?
Kid: Europe
Me: Europe who?
Kid: No, you're a poo!

Looking at the mishmash of Brexiters and their supporters in the print media I don't expect these negotiators to be much more maturer in their exchanges.

Junkyard Tom

The EU should grow a pair of balls now and shake off its dependence on the US/NATO. I'd like to see all EU members in NATO leave for a common EU defence pact with a commitment to buy only EU produced military hardware. '**** the EU' Nuland said - the EU needs to return the serve. An EU-CIS detente is the US's nightmare - we should make it happen.

RDM_83 again

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

The EU should grow a pair of balls now and shake off its dependence on the US/NATO. I'd like to see all EU members in NATO leave for a common EU defence pact with a commitment to buy only EU produced military hardware. '**** the EU' Nuland said - the EU needs to return the serve. An EU-CIS detente is the US's nightmare - we should make it happen.

Multi-country EU defence projects don't have a great history though- see the Eurofighter.

CIS?? Commonwealth of Independent States?

Junkyard Tom

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Multi-country EU defence projects don't have a great history though- see the Eurofighter.

Airbus might disagree.

CIS?? Commonwealth of Independent States?

What's left of the former USSR. Europe needs the CIS much more than it needs a load of chickenhawk neocons messing around on its eastern flank.

steddyeddy

steddyeddy wrote: »

The Sun going with the threatening angle again. Less than a few weeks after they were criticising McGuinness.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3235404/britain-gibraltar-spain-war-brexit/

Michael Howard continuing to demonstrate that theres something of the night about him.

Fratton Fred

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

What exactly would the Royal Navy do ?

If it's not a shooting war then it'll probably play out like the Cod War which the UK lost. If it's a shooting war then how long would the Royal Navy last without air cover ?

A reminder the ship that won the Falklands war , HMS Hermes, retired recently, after spending 30 years serving the Indian Navy. In fact had that war started a few months later the UK would not have been able to do anything as HMS Invincible had been sold to Australia and Hermes was due to be decommissioned, also the Vulcans didn't have many hours left on .their airframes.

no one is going to war over the Falklands. he UK has no reason to start one and Spain is never going to invade a fellow NATO country.

But, aircover for the fleet will, as always, be provided by the air defence destroyers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_45_destroyer

and you miss one important fact. The Falklands is 8000 miles from London, Madrid is 900.

Dyr

FrancieBrady wrote: »

America wouldn't let them leave Portsmouth.
The Brexit thing has just got surreal.

America is being run by a KGB spacehopper in a wig, many things are now possible

steddyeddy

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Michael Howard continuing to demonstrate that theres something of the night about him.

Ir that he's senile and still thinks there is an empire.

FrancieBrady

Bambi wrote: »

America is being run by a KGB spacehopper in a wig, many things are now possible

Dear old Britain needs a shot of good old Maggie style jingoism.
Whenever the going gets tough get the frigates and warships revving their engines in port. Spoil for a fight. :D

Fratton Fred

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Dear old Britain needs a shot of good old Maggie style jingoism.
Whenever the going gets tough get the frigates and warships revving their engines in port. Spoil for a fight. :D

what the hell are you actually on about?

steddyeddy

Fratton Fred wrote: »

what the hell are you actually on about?

Probrably about the sabre rattling that the UK has produced in the last two days fred. We've seen the defense secretary, Howard and a former navy commander talk about how Britain's navy could destroy Spain. Fairly jingoistic stuff.

Peregrinus

Fratton Fred wrote: »

. . . and you miss one important fact. The Falklands is 8000 miles from London, Madrid is 900.

This is not really an important fact because, as you point out:

Fratton Fred wrote: »

no one is going to war over the Falklands.

This is the usual Brexiter hysterics. It has been reported that a draft of the EU's Brexit negotiating stance includes a provision that whatever the UK negotiates for itself will not apply to Gibraltar unless Spain agrees.

On the face of it, this isn't unreasonable. Gibraltar is not part of the UK, and never has been. (It's a "British Overseas Territory".) It "piggy-backs" on the UK's membership of the EU to participate (the only B.O.T. to do so) and does very well out of it; in the Brexit referendum Gibraltarians voted 96% to remain.

Obviously, the UK's exit agreement will need to consider the position of Gibraltar, and is likely to seek some kind of special accommodation or status; a hard Brexit would be disastrous for Gibraltar.

Equally obviously, Spain is the member state most interested in, and affected by, any deal for Gibraltar. Spain has a land border with Gibraltar, and nearly all of Gibraltar's trade with the EU-27 is with Spain. (Gibraltar does much more trade with Spain than it does with the UK, FWIW.)

Consequently, it's not wholly unreasonable to say that, when the EU is negotiating the Brexit deal, if the UK wants any or all terms of the deal to extend to Gibraltar, the EU won't agree to that unless Spain does. Spain is, after all, the country most affected.

May, with her unerring instinct for raising the temperature unnecessarily, made a statement to the effect that that Britain would never put the people of Gibraltar under the sovereignty of another state against their wishes. As nobody has suggested doing anything of the kind, the statement seems unwarranted.

But once the word "sovereignty" is dragged into any conversation, however irrelevantly, the Pavlovian reactions of Brexiters can be depended upon; hence the articles in the less grounded-in-reality fringes of the British press discussing British military capacity in the event of a war over Gibraltar.

If the British gave a stuff about Gibraltar they'd negotiate an opt-out so that Gibraltar could retain its relationship with the EU even after the UK leaves, which is what the overwhelming majority of Gibraltarians want. But that has already been ruled out because, if it can be done for Gibraltar, the Scots might get notions, and we can't have that, can we? So bugger the Gibraltarians and their views on the EU, but they're a handy flag to wave when we feel like getting all hairy-chested about our huge stock of phallic symbols.

lawred2

Fratton Fred wrote: »

what the hell are you actually on about?

none so blind etc

but just to be clear

He said: "Thirty-five-years-ago this week, another woman prime minister sent a task force half way across the world to defend the freedom of another small group of British people against another Spanish-speaking country.

"I'm absolutely certain that our current Prime Minister will show the same resolve in standing by the people of Gibraltar."

When asked later in the day to clarify his comments, Lord Howard said: "I can see no harm of reminding them what kind of people we are".

FrancieBrady

steddyeddy wrote: »

Probrably about the sabre rattling that the UK has produced in the last two days fred. We've seen the defense secretary, Howard and a former navy commander talk about how Britain's navy could destroy Spain. Fairly jingoistic stuff.

Absolutely, soon as they got the opportunity they were all over it.

Ridiculous stuff. Deflecting attention away from losing the first round of negotiations.

First Up

FrancieBrady wrote:

Ridiculous stuff. Deflecting attention away from losing the first round of negotiations.

And away from the slowdown in manufacturing output, growing inflation and sterling's continuing slide.

A bit of Rule Brittania always goes down well with the red top readers.

Fratton Fred

steddyeddy wrote: »

Probrably about the sabre rattling that the UK has produced in the last two days fred. We've seen the defense secretary, Howard and a former navy commander talk about how Britain's navy could destroy Spain. Fairly jingoistic stuff.

its the Sun Eddy.

tomwaterford

Deos Gibraltar even elect an MP??


Seems incomprehensible that the wishes of Westminster would apply there if not??

Fratton Fred

tomwaterford wrote: »

Deos Gibraltar even elect an MP??


Seems incomprehensible that the wishes of Westminster would apply there if not??

as with all overseas territories, the UK is only responsible for foreign affairs and defence. It has no part in the internal administration of the country.

That's one of the reasons why the UK can't negotiate on the status of the falkalnds, it has no mandate to do so unless it is specifically asked by the Falklands government. It is the same with Gibraltar, giving it to Spain would be like telling France they can have Ireland.

steddyeddy

Fratton Fred wrote: »

its the Sun Eddy.

It's the secretary of defense Fred, an ex navy commander and a senior tory. It was reported across the media.