Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

peter kern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119200572#Comment_119200572

but you look at this a bit too much from the eu is wining side , as this is actually quite a difficult matter and the uk and eu obviously know this. so yes they can hit them hard in dover and already do in the horizon issue ,but not where the issue is , as it is a very delicate issue. in this matter the eu is for once not totally calling the shots. especially if they want to stay the adult in the room .

and the uk gov does not really care to hurt itself more. so it is kind of true if the uk got gets one up on the eu , at the cost for many more loses

and to add both sides are losing and europe is already weaker. so no the eu is not really wining either we are just losing less .

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119200750#Comment_119200750

When you say "digital startup market", I hope you don't refer to the various blockchain and crypto companies flooding the overall sector? 'cos if so, that's a bubble waiting to happen. Completely off-topic so keen not to cause too much distraction but being artificially bolstered by an unregulated concept barely managing to justify its existence is a bit of a house of straw.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119200779#Comment_119200779

No, I don't. I look at it from the side of Ireland, both sides of the border. The deal protects NI from the worst of Brexit and prevents a hard border.

The EU is weaker and stronger. Weaker for having lost a large member, stronger for being free of said member's destructive influence. It is what it is.

The UK being allowed to undermine the single market cannot and will not be permitted to happen. Peace and prosperity in Europe are worth more than Boris Johnson's inane ambitions.

A hobby of mine is to search specific buzzwords and see if the express has been talking about them in the last day.

rameire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119201609#Comment_119201609

The word 'Gammon' is banned from their comments sections.

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119201609#Comment_119201609

Every now and again ill have a look at the express website for a laugh, but it quickly depresses me how barenaked lies pass as news, and it is swallowed up by loads.

wexfordman2

And spudmuncher, for example is not banned in that racist little rag!

Makes my blood boil when I see it sold in certain eatablishments and supermarkets over here!!

54and56

I can't actually believe Niall Patterson (who I generally can't bear listening to) completely skewered Liz Truss on the proposed NIP legislation this morning, she hadn't anything of substance to reply with other than the usual quips, it's well worth a watch. Can't wait to see this debated in Westminster and in the various committee's etc who will systematically dismantle it and the fabrications which underpin it.

https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1536610745387044868

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202230#Comment_119202230

3:20 in. That's Frost and now Truss saying that North South trade is a problem.

Igotadose

Apparently BoJo is claiming some sort of 'grave peril' that is causing this legislation to be drafted, yet, as the Sky interviewer asked, what is it? NI is doing economically better than the rest of GB, so that's not it. Truss's reply is something about no government in Stormont. Well, that's something the UK government has to make happen with the DUP. I imagine they have ways.

And wow Truss is some kind of uber-muppet. Bland speaking style, speaking very slowly probably hoping listeners will get bored. Just really bad. Not as much deer in the headlights as the talking empty suit that is Dominic "Where is Calais again?" Raab and whackadoodle Nadine Dorries, but yeesh!

BlitzKrieg

We must be in 1914 again for there to be a 'grave peril'.

If the conservatives want to paint the picture that the anger in the unionist communities in particular is so strong that the UK is once again at the circumstances they were over 100 years ago with unionist threatening civil war against the whole of the UK, then the DUP need to stand up and show that is the case.

But they wont because we are not in 1914, despite being a bunch of angry boys the reality is if the DUP actually took it to the point of threatening violence their support would evaporate because the truth is the issues with the protocol are really mostly just an inconveniance.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202230#Comment_119202230

Just think too, Liz Truss is considered a candidate to be the next PM.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202230#Comment_119202230

Christ, that's painful. Utterly excruciating. She's incapable of answering any of the questions posed, instead just opting for her pre-prepared statements over and over again. I think she fancies herself as Thatcher:

I know someone who worked for her. To put it politely, he rated her intellectual capacity poorly. She just seems to want to climb the pole without doing much by way or work or research.

They're just openly showing contempt for NI now and not even pretending to hide it. The way she went straight there and just cynically used those thousands of deaths like that for her own benefit is just sickening.

Her rationale as well, "The text is the problem". It's hardly going to be the feckin font, is it? They've driven out anyone with talent and this is the result. Expect to hear much more about Remainers, Brexit, May and so on.

We're actually doing this yet again it seems.

pixelburp

Her utter lack of charisma or intelligence will never be more neatly summarised than her infamous "pork markets" comment at whatever Tory group lovein it was from fadó. Like the rest of this UK cabinet, she's another grifter and case study for Dunning Kruger

Working class heroes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202720#Comment_119202720

Was that not the one about cheese?

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119200162#Comment_119200162

If by "bearing responsibility for Liverpool" you mean Varadkar should have expected the UK Govt to be systemically mendacious and duplicitous then I think you're using the benefit of perfect hindsight to find Varadkar guilty and by implication all other 26 EU heads of state who up until then thought the UK was a nation of honour and principle which upheld agreements it entered into.

Shame on them all I guess and bravo to you for having such foresight and calling out at the time how the UK didn't intend honouring the NIP and were agreeing to it in bad faith in the full knowledge that at some time convenient to them a short time later they would stoke unionist unrest to a point where they could leverage it to unilaterally rip up the NIP under the pretext of "saving" the GFA.

Don't suppose you have any posts from Oct 2019 which demonstrate your world class foresight?

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119199635#Comment_119199635

Here ya go Kermit, the EU's position is articulated in nice succinct fashion for all to see. It's a long game, there's no need to get over excited and sucked into playing BoJo & Co's game of distraction. Time and economic heft are on the EU's side, just as they've always been and likely always will be as the UK becomes more and more economically isolated, politically marginalised and irrelevant.

BonnieSituation

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202230#Comment_119202230

What even was that?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119203294#Comment_119203294

LOL. Now I wonder if anyone with any grasp of history and knowledge of BJ being a liar before he became PM and who had any grasp of the British parliamentary logjam and who understood Brexit as a relaunch of an inveterately aggressive and acquisitive state with a reputation as Perfidious Albion onto a global stage with a banner of being buccaneering held aloft, I wonder if any of those existed? You’d expect the leader of a country to be better at it than an internet randomer? Wouldn’t you? LOL

Your problem and it is a problem is that you can’t see the UK for what it is, what it was and what it wants to be. Like a lot more in FFG you have some idea of what Redmond felt like when he too was played for a fool. At least this time it didn’t take 30,000 Irish dead to educate you.

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119203479#Comment_119203479

So you didn't have any of the insight at the time which you can share with us that you now claim should have been blindingly obvious to all and sundry.

It's so easy being a 20:20 hindsight "I told you so" person, you can never be wrong and you can blame everyone else for getting it wrong.

BTW, it wasn't a question of trusting BoJo, he is and was all the things you refer to but the agreement was entered into by sovereign nations and drafted to be in effect long after BoJo & Co are an embarrassing footnote of history.

Perhaps 27 EU nations were wrong to assume the UK as a nation should be treated as a serious trustworthy country even if the transitory PM couldn't.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119203479#Comment_119203479

You are aware that as things stand the UK is continuing to actually abide by the NIP and WA and the British reneging on the deal (if they actually do) just reverts us back to where we were 2 years ago. The UK have gained nothing from any of this and ultimately neither Ireland or the EU have lost anything as the baseline is a reversion to what the UK were threatening (and continually backing away from) to begin with.

ancapailldorcha

Jesus, this almost seems like parody:

https://twitter.com/AntonSpisak/status/1536693250857254912

They just keep embarrassing themselves.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119203583#Comment_119203583

“All and sundry”. LOL. Typical of deliberately twisting what was written. Does it ever cross your mind how obvious you are?

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119203712#Comment_119203712

I long to have your insight and crystal ball capability Diespies......................honestly.

Obviously not is the answer to my previous question. No you don’t because you wouldn’t like it. But for you, here’s one to watch very closely: the US investigation into UAP. It’s going to get very messy.

peter kern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119200917#Comment_119200917

and of course this is the bread games the uk is playing. apart from kermit the clown most here know this is bread and games as at the end of the day the uk does not want to pay the price for it but at the same time the eu can not do much either as the only way to protect the single market would be to move the controls from belfast around the border and this is not going to happen either

so no the uk will not follow through but neither would the eu stop the brexit agreement as this would not solve the issue in NI so i guess nobody takes that thread from the eu really serious as well.

the eu will calmly play its game and boards will go crazy after every post from kermit the clown for a few more years . that is the only thing that is certain.... its kind of funny that we tell kermit the eu needs to keep calm and yet get triggered by boris and kermit every time lol

54and56

Taken from the Times today

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119203852#Comment_119203852

What's the UAP?

looksee

The only thing I can think of is unidentified aerial phenomena (previously UFOs). It can't be that, can it? Surely not?

pixelburp

Has any temperature been taken yet about the likelihood of this passing in Parliament? I'm reading that Tory MPs are keeping their heads down for now - though presumably 'til they can read the text of the thing, and its potential legality.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/14/bulk-of-tory-mps-stand-firm-behind-northern-ireland-protocol-bill

awec

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/14/boris-johnson-tells-cabinet-de-escalate-protocol-stand-off-brussels/

What a shock.

breezy1985

So now he is telling everyone to take the heat out of the fire he lit.

Maxface

Talk of it taking 18 months or so if even then to take place. I know they are at it a lot, any thought that this is in some way a placation to get the DUP into powersharing?

Sam Russell

GB£ has falling in the last month from 84p = €1 to 87p = €1.

So the markets do not like this bill and the prospect of a trade war.

CrabRevolution

You have to marvel at their neck trying the "We have to abandon the NI protocol in order to get Stormont going" excuse.

Firstly because that's effectively saying that they're conceding to blackmail and siding with the Unionists.

Secondly, say Sinn Féin tried the opposite and said they were going to boycott Stormont until the Protocol is instated and enforced in full, would the UK government then move to fully comply with the withdrawal agreement in order to get the NI Assembly going? Would they f*ck....

Seth Brundle

Tony Connelly has a great update regarding the EU's action agains the UK...

https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1536997592541929474

The main points of his thread (which you should read) are:

• UK could be appearing in front of ECJ wihtin two months
• fresh legal action over UK's failure to provide border posts & staff as well as real-time reporting
• EU revealed large scale smuggling via NI (weapons, counterfeid goods, drugs, tobacco, medecines) which were destined for the EU
• UK bill would allow UK to disallow all but three elements of NIP
• EU's proposals would only require a Sainsburys truck to have 3 pages of documentation
• plus more

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119204270#Comment_119204270

This is a "both sides" argument.

The EU isn't doing anything because nothing needs to be done. Nothing needs to be done because the UK hasn't done anything. Kermit's narrative is standard Irexiter drivel designed to lay the framework for an Irexit campaign I suspect.

That's a good point from the previous page's screesnhot.

If the bill is there because of imminent peril, and the failure to form an assembly is a major part of that, how can one justify A. not immediately putting forward the bill to avoid this peril and B. asking the DUP to form the assembly before passing the bill.

Why would the bill then be needed.

Leroy42

Its not. There is no imminent peril. Stormont has been in recess before, and there was no hint of danger of immediate action for the UK government.

As with everything to do with Brexit, once one gets past the initial headlines it all falls apart.

It also raises the real possibility that SF will use this very process to push for a border poll. Simply pull out of the assembly, demand a border poll, and demand the UK government give in as otherwise there is an imminent peril. Another short sighted grab by the UK government which falls apart under the merest scrutiny

Even the sensible idea within it, green and red lanes, requires data sharing with the EU. And surely the EU would want a presence on the ground for spot checks? But the UK have refused this in the past, and refused to build the infrastructure for these new Green and Red lanes.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119205712#Comment_119205712

Well if you are on the loony tune wing of the DUP all of our souls were in imminent peril during the last Stormont closure due to Westminster unleashing gay marriages and abortions on everyone.

Sam Russell

For SF to pursue a border poll at the present time would be stupid in the extreme.

If such a border poll was proposed now, or in the near future, it would fail spectacularly because there is no popular support for it with any community in the north. It would unify the Unionist voters, it would frighten the middle ground, and many Nationalists are unsure about any benefits that would ensue from a UI. The Nationalist are not sure they belong in a UI, and Unionists feel they could not live in a UI, and are not welcome anyway.

To get a UI, SF should pursue a united NI first. They campaign as if to force a UI on the Unionists in NI against their will - not a good strategy.

They must reassure the communities (all of them) how much a UI would benefit each of them economically, socially, culturally, educationally, career prospects, etc. All the things that matter to each group should be the reason for them to vote for a UI. They should take a leaf out on the Brexit campaign and be all things to all voters. All voters should be able to feel that their prospects and values in life would benefit from a UI over their prospects while they are at the whims of a not-caring Gov led currently by a toxic Tory Party, but probably just as poor if led by a toxic Labour Party. Either case, they are just a pimple on the arse of the UK juggernaut.

If SF get a border poll and fail to get it passed, probably it puts back the UI project for a generation, but at least a decade or two.

SF should stick to the bread and butter issues by improving the daily lives of both Nationalists and Unionists, while remembering the Loyalist is more Loyal to the half-crown than the Crown - just try to make them all richer.

Leroy42

I'm not suggesting they pursue it now. But this move by HMG gives them plenty of opportunity in the future.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119205309#Comment_119205309

Read on that Irish monk Twitter that shellfish exports from NI to the EU increased by 5000% since GB shellfish exports were blocked.

Imagine the shenanigans the British would get up to with any relaxations of the NIP.

https://twitter.com/castlvillageman/status/1534848426801872896?s=20&t=sDFhFOTn-wwcdjAHI2oH8w

peter kern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119205319#Comment_119205319

but this is not quite correct effectively the single market is already a bit compromised in ireland since brexit, as the shared checks and supposed to be shared data flow between uk and eu of goods is not happening.not a big deal as of now but the single market already is a bit compromised.

or in other words there has not been a single day the uk has implemented the ni protocol.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206802#Comment_119206802

Wait, the UK haven't implemented the protocol? Have you a source for this?

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206849#Comment_119206849

The old and new lawsuits from EU as a starting point.

The stalled legal action related to the UK’s unilateral extension of protocol grace periods in 2021.

The two new infringement proceedings announced on Wednesday relate to alleged UK failures around Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) checks on agri-food produce entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain and also an alleged failure to provide the EU with data on the movement of goods across the Irish Sea.

The EU is issuing formal notices of action in respect of the two new infringement proceedings.

The bloc claims the SPS checks are not being carried out properly, with insufficient staff and infrastructure in place at the border control posts at the ports in Northern Ireland.

It says the UK is also not currently sharing the trade statistics data required under the protocol.

Above is taken from here (I read it on Independent earlier but could not find the article again), that's three separate failures to implement the protocol by the UK government. The NI minister Mr Lewis also made a comment along the lines of "If we had implemented the protocol fully it would be even worse" but I can't find the citation for that one.

ancapailldorcha

Thanks. Aren't grace periods a feature already or is it the unilateral element that is the issue?

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206949#Comment_119206949

There was an initial grace period that was then extended; that extended grace period ended but UK decided it should be extended without agreement to infinity basically. It ties back to the two new breaches by not actually implementing the controls (last time I checked the new custom locations etc. are still not in place to perform the checks).

Found the quote:

Mr Lewis accused the EU of being “disingenuous” about offering flexibilities on the protocol.

He told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme: “What they’ve been saying consistently across the media and have been reported as saying is that they’re offering flexibilities. Well, they’re not.

“What the EU are offering is some flexibility based on a fully-implemented protocol. That would be, actually, worse than the situation we’ve got today.”

As most of Boris government not the sharpest tool in the box admitting you have not implemented what you agreed to...

fly_agaric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206358#Comment_119206358

They already are I'd say. Think there was an EU report on it (the UKs partial implementation of the NI Protocol) that showed it is basically a joke.

It just hasn't come home to roost here yet (or perhaps the punchline hasn't landed if trying not to mix metaphors).

We're probably saved by fact that:

1. UK has not diverged very much from EU as regards edit sp: agriculture/food (or anything else I suppose) so far (but can't rely on this forever), and
2. Leakage is for down here I expect. It (probably) doesn't spread beyond the island.

1 and 2 are linked in that when (not if) divergance happens it creates arbitrage opportunities and it will be more worthwhile to route stuff through Ireland to get it onto the "mainland" into the bigger markets there.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207140#Comment_119207140

'1 and 2 are linked in that when (not if) divergance happens it creates arbitrage opportunities and it will be more worthwhile to route stuff through Ireland to get it onto the "mainland" into the bigger markets there.'

I would not be too sure about that.

It is clear from trade figures and trade activity of the NI ports that significant imports are going via NI ports rather than through Dublin - presumably to avoid checks in Dublin. Movement of shellfish has increased by 50 times that proves that, with such shellfish ending up in France.

They are not testing.

I have seen British (labelled as such with a flag to prove it) beef for sale in M&S in Blackrock, Dublin. Surely that is wrong - we have more than enough native beef to not need to import beef from GB.

I have seen potatoes from UK for sale in Tescos - I thought that was not allowed either.