Brexit discussion thread IX (Please read OP before posting)

Professor Moriarty

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Except that that strategy makes the heads of smaller nations nervous. Talk of the EU ignoring a small nations interests would make Denmark, Sweden, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Hungary, Czehia, Cyprus, Croatia, Solvakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania etc nervous that they could be next. Of the EU 27, 8 States have a population less than ours and 20 including us have a population of less than 15m. Thats a lot of votes in the council.

So whatever about trying to convince the other 26 countries that there is a better way to deal with the border, or that Ireland could have special rules, treatment etc, which they might agree to, visibly throwing Ireland under the bus will never work with the EU. The smart play for a British PM would be to try to bring Ireland along, and with us the other small nations.

But of course for Boris et al, the idea that Ireland would be sacrificed, leave the EU, Greece and Italy would follow suit and the smaller nations would feel afraid of France and Germany is the ultimate Brexit prize. For them its not about actually leaving the EU its about breaking the EU apart.

Agreed. I think they will try to isolate Ireland but they'll fail. They'll just piss the EU and Ireland off further. They're so insular in their perspective that they are oblivious to the amount of goodwill they've squandered, economically and politically.

54and56

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

It is now at the stage where if Johnson isn't seen to "deliver Brexit", the Tories are in serious existential trouble.

I think the Tory's are potentially finished either way.

Don't deliver Brexit before the next election and it's complete wipe out time. End of. Consigned to the history books.

Deliver a No Deal Brexit and if it plays out economically and socially as many have predicted the blame will be pinned squarely on them for messing it up and causing all the strife.

The best potential outcome for them is to get this phase of Brexit over the line even if that means Bojo having to re-wrap the existing WA in some nice new political declaration veneer and progress as fast and hard to a trade deal before the next election.

It's going to be an interesting 35 months until May 5th 2022 if they can avoid a no confidence motion and keep the Deeeee Youuuuuu Peeeeee "happy" (are they ever happy?) until the.

What interesting (and slightly scary) times we are living through.

Enzokk

Sam Russell wrote: »

Before dismissing Churchill, he was very much in favour of the unifying of Europe as envisaged by the various initiatives that eventually led to the EU, and the ECHR. If he was the current PM, he would not be in favour of Brexit in any guise. He was a proponent of any measure that would prevent the causes of WW II from emerging again.

The other Hero of the Tories, Margaret Thatcher was very much in favour of the Single Market. Again, she would be very much against Brexit.

It is not an excuse but Churchill was very much a man of his times. Remember even Gandhi looked down on those races he though inferior to his own even as the English looked down on him.

As for Johnson, The Telegraph is pushing a story that there are plans afoot to have him elected without a battle. The dirty laundry and gaffs he will make will make him undesirable as a leader for the majority of voters I think. He also has the problem that he doesn't really look like a leader and while this is no indication on if someone will be competent, add his dubious record to that and you have someone that is not fit to lead and doesn't look fit either.

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1139635976488271872

ancapailldorcha

Mod: No more insults please. Post deleted.

Spanish Eyes

Enzokk wrote: »

As for Johnson, The Telegraph is pushing a story that there are plans afoot to have him elected without a battle. The dirty laundry and gaffs he will make will make him undesirable as a leader for the majority of voters I think. He also has the problem that he doesn't really look like a leader and while this is no indication on if someone will be competent, add his dubious record to that and you have someone that is not fit to lead and doesn't look fit either.

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1139635976488271872

He writes for the Telegraph doesn't he? No surprises there so.

And Tories read the TG as if it is their Bible. Daily Mail also. The Guardian is anathema to them.

Is there any media source in the UK that is impartial at all?

Sam Russell

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

He writes for the Telegraph doesn't he? No surprises there so.

And Tories read the TG as if it is their Bible. Daily Mail also. The Guardian is anathema to them.

Is there any media source in the UK that is impartial at all?

Private Eye.

Capt'n Midnight

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Is there any media source in the UK that is impartial at all?

The Tories rightly hobbled the BBC with the 2015 charter. Which is why we can't have nice things like BBC 3 or Free TV licences for over 75's any more.

SKY who used to be at the opposite end of the impartial spectrum no longer have the Murdoch influence.

I haven't watched national news on ITN for ages, but they do the Channel 4 news. Just not as dumbed down. So target audience matters too.



It's over 30 years ago but Yes Minister is still an excellent reference. Even down to the apathy of those who will be most affected by Brexit.

Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

Capt'n Midnight

Suppose BoJo wins, he could call a GE. Washing his hands going "will of the people" According to the rules he couldn't be challenged for a year.

If he wins then he can chuck the DUP under the big red bus.
And reverse back a few times.

Then there's nothing stopping an Irish sea border apart from the ERG and they were only using it as an excuse. So Soft Brexit.



If he looses then the "will of the people" democracy and all that, we'll do better next time.

If by some miracle Labour get in then expect this (shamelessly copied from Slugger)
Daily Mail headline in 2022 "Why Did We Let Corbyn Drag Us Out Of The EU?



If it's a hung parliament , what would deal with Boris ?

Headshot

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Suppose BoJo wins, he could call a GE. Washing his hands going "will of the people" According to the rules he couldn't be challenged for a year.

If he wins then he can chuck the DUP under the big red bus.
And reverse back a few times.

Then there's nothing stopping an Irish sea border apart from the ERG and they were only using it as an excuse. So Soft Brexit.



If he looses then the "will of the people" democracy and all that, we'll do better next time.

If by some miracle Labour get in then expect this (shamelessly copied from Slugger)
Daily Mail headline in 2022 "Why Did We Let Corbyn Drag Us Out Of The EU?



If it's a hung parliament , what would deal with Boris ?

But wouldnt it be suicide for the conservatives to call a GE and risk the Brexit party possibly getting in power?

Peregrinus

I don't see that that would be any more suicidal (for the Tory party) than a GE which risks Labour possibly getting into power. But sooner or later there must be a GE.

Or did you mean suicidal for the UK? Boris doesn't care about that.

Peregrinus

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Fail to deliver and UKIP the Brexit Party eats them from the right, deliver it and the LibDems eat them from the center when it becomes clear it was a dreadful mistake.

Either way, the Tories are in serious existential trouble.

Which is nice.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

I'd add; deliver Brexit and the Brexit Party eats them from the right, blaming the consequences of Brexit on the Tories for having delivered the wrong Brexit, betrayed True Brexit, yadda, yadda, yadda.

There is literally nothing that can be done to placate the Brexit Party, for whom outrage at betrayal is an existential necessity. So don't bother trying.

Seth Brundle

Good article by Tony Connelly on NI and a potential No Deal...
Double Whammy: A no-deal Brexit and Northern Ireland

Professor Moriarty

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Good article by Tony Connelly on NI and a potential No Deal...
Double Whammy: A no-deal Brexit and Northern Ireland

Excellent article. Looks like Ireland will indeed be getting the blame.

20silkcut

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Excellent article. Looks like Ireland will indeed be getting the blame.

For holding the dumbest most needless referendum in history???

They can get lost.

j8wk2feszrnpao

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Good article by Tony Connelly on NI and a potential No Deal...
Double Whammy: A no-deal Brexit and Northern Ireland

Boris/Conservatives and largely the UK itself, doesn’t really care about NI. Which makes the DUP’s fascination with sucking up to the UK even more desperate.

Sam Russell

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Good article by Tony Connelly on NI and a potential No Deal...
Double Whammy: A no-deal Brexit and Northern Ireland

One thing he does not mention is the problem facing milk lorries collecting milk along the border. Currently a milk lorry will cross the border several times picking milk up from either side of the border. Following no-deal, the lorry cannot pick up NI milk and mix it with Irish milk because it is not EU milk. So NI milk will no longer be collected.

NI situation following a no-deal exit is a massive problem for us and NI. Dover is a massive problem for the rest of the UK. The UK Gov must be getting buried in pleas from every quarter of the UK economy that no-deal is impossible and not to go there.

The only solution for NI is a border in the Irish sea with NI effectively remaining in the CU and SM. The longer term solution is a united Ireland.

First Up

Sam Russell wrote:

The only solution for NI is a border in the Irish sea with NI effectively remaining in the CU and SM. The longer term solution is a united Ireland.

Boris has already flagged that he favours checks "elsewhere" to avoid a hard border. I doubt he has thought that (or anything else) through but it isn't a big jump to include the Irish Sea or North Channel in "elsewhere".

Laois_Man

First Up wrote: »

Boris has already flagged that he favours checks "elsewhere" to avoid a hard border. I doubt he has thought that (or anything else) through but it isn't a big jump to include the Irish Sea or North Channel in "elsewhere".

It makes sense - But if it was something that could get thru the HoC, May would have done it long ago!

Professor Moriarty

20silkcut wrote: »

For holding the dumbest most needless referendum in history???

They can get lost.

Indeed, but that's not how it will be portrayed. England Britain wants to leave the EU but Ireland won't let us.

First Up

Laois_Man wrote:

It makes sense - But if it was something that could get thru the HoC, May would have done it long ago!

Depends on what the alternatives are.

First Up

Professor Moriarty wrote:

Indeed, but that's not how it will be portrayed. England Britain wants to leave the EU but Ireland won't let us.

They can portray how they want. There is stuff for UK consumption and then there is planet earth. The two rarely overlap.

Laois_Man

First Up wrote: »

Depends on what the alternatives are.

The alternatives haven't changed, and they won't!

First Up

Laois_Man wrote:

The alternatives haven't changed, and they won't!

I agree but maybe when they hear them from Boris, they might sink in.

Leroy42

That article is pretty sobering read.

How can NI be just sitting by and letting this happen, and in the case of DUP actively seeking it?

Why are the farmers (well everyone really) effected not demanding a rethink?

Igotadose

Leroy42 wrote: »

That article is pretty sobering read.

How can NI be just sitting by and letting this happen, and in the case of DUP actively seeking it?

Why are the farmers (well everyone really) effected not demanding a rethink?

Agreed. The death of any service industry in NI is something I hadn't heard much about till this article, as the whole service thing vs. Brexit comes up in the context of London.

National suicide is what the UK are doing. Though, in 10 years post Brexit I imagine land and products there will be fairly cheap, the notion of Irish landowners in England appeals to my sense of schadenfreude. Especially if they throw in a few evictions.

Lackadaisical

munstermagic11 wrote: »

Boris/Conservatives and largely the UK itself, doesn’t really care about NI. Which makes the DUP’s fascination with sucking up to the UK even more desperate.

That's down to ethnic identity politics in northern Ireland. Logic, economic and pragmatics have absolutely nothing to do with it. It's also impossible to use logic to argue with it as it's pure tribalism.

The tribe the DUP consider themselves loyal to is jumping off a cliff, so they're going to enthusiastically do exactly the same. Things like the fate of the Northern Ireland economy don't seem to factor into that. They simply believe in the UK and the rest is irrelevant. They've also created a notion they the EU as a proxy for the a monster they imagine to be south of the border. So that's hardened the line even further.

It's the same with the Brexiteers. The whole Brexit mantra appeals to tribalism and emotional nationalism. The remain argument that tried to counter it is based on appealing logic and pragmatism. It never reached them as they don't care about any of that. To them this is about identity and abstract stuff. The details don't matter a damn to them and it's being driven by various political and media actors who know exactly how to keep pushing all those buttons.

My view of it is the UK including NI will march off that cliff and there's very little any of the rest of us can do about it. They're going to face huge economic and stability costs but they aren't willing to accept that's reality.

I honestly think it's time to just prepare for the mess as I don't think we are going to be able to prevent it.

It's awful, especially in Northern Ireland that this will likely create serious instability but the political system up there isn't willing to deal with that before it happens. There are consequences to voting for hard-line parties and those are a risk of severe instability and intransigence. I feel very annoyed that so much effort was put into the peace process by so many people, yet here we are at a massive crisis and the politicians in the North and in the UK are wringing their hands and marching straight into chaos, against the will of the majority in NI who voted against Brexit. However, this is what happens when a population keeps voting down tribal lines. It may sound harsh, but it's a democracy and you get what you vote for in terms of representatives and the centrist parties in NI, the UUP and SDLP, were sidelined, despite their enormous contributions towards the peace process back in the 1990s.

The DUP are far more extreme in their social and political views than present day SF but they're both parties that only appeal to their respective tribes. The cross community thing evaporated and look where we are. They've thrown their toys out of the pram and the apron strings they're still swinging from are firmly attached to Nanny in London and she's gone on the gin, gone completely mad and is singing songs about empire and behaving like a football hooligan.

Professor Moriarty

Leroy42 wrote: »

That article is pretty sobering read.

How can NI be just sitting by and letting this happen, and in the case of DUP actively seeking it?

Why are the farmers (well everyone really) effected not demanding a rethink?

The Ulster Farmers Union are constantly telling anyone who will listen that No Deal would be a disaster.

Lackadaisical

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

The Ulster Farmers Union are constantly telling anyone who will listen that No Deal would be a disaster.

Again though the Ulster Farmers Union are a bunch of logical, pragmatic people who are arguing based on facts, figures and science to a bunch of people who just want to wave flags and charge forward towards an imaginary destiny. They're not listening and they won't listen.

The farmers need to start protesting to get noticed.

trellheim

The DUP are never going to agree to the backstop ; the EU are not going to change it. The only answer to that is no deal. If, as is likely Boris Johnson is voted in as PM

remember - his constituency is Uxbridge.

When Runway 3 at Heathrow was up for a vote in the House of Commons he was Foreign Secretary at the time he was suddenly inspecting troops in Afghanistan so he would not have to vote against it, even though the Cabinet whipped it through. We can expect several re-runs of this behaviour

Infini

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Excellent article. Looks like Ireland will indeed be getting the blame.

They forget that while they can blame Ireland all they want if they play that game they will loose utterly as not only will they be blamed for causing the situation by everyone in the EU but they'll be dismantled economically and politically by everyone else over the following decade.

The ones pushing Brexit both in the Tories and Farage are utter wasters and parasites and if they want a no deal they want to be careful what they wish or as they will pay one way or another for causing such a needless trainwreck for the satisfaction of their own delusions and ego.