Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Leroy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010069#Comment_118010069

Agreed, but there really is no downside from the US acting like the honest broker in any dispute. The UK will have torn up an international agreement. So US can take the moral highground and claim that they can't be seen to provide acceptance to such a position. The US doesn't need a trade deal with the UK, it won't make a massive difference either way to the US economy.

The US don't need to give the UK anything to keep them sweet. The UK know they are completely reliant on the US for military so they will go with whatever the US wants anyway.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118009998#Comment_118009998

Precisely and this is before the point that it's somehow in the interests of the US to basically control the government of such a prominent ally.

joeguevara

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010152#Comment_118010152

Which countries exactly though and what will they trade? Will EU money not talk more?

joeguevara

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010165#Comment_118010165

What exactly did they vote for if they are going to be controlled and is the EU not a much more prominent ally?

McGiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117996905#Comment_117996905

Slovakia, not really, they now have the most liberal, pro-European and decent President (female on top) as well as Prime Minister in years..

The same goes for Czechia, where the liberal-conservative rainbow coalition just defeated the populist-oligarch lead minority government in this weekend's general election. And the Czech pro-Russian pro-China President is unconscious in the hospital. Czechia has totally confirmed pro-EU and Western direction, as it always was. No Hungarian scenario really. The Polish scenario is totally remote in Czechia and can never happen with its constitution and political culture, which is much more centrist-liberal-left than in Poland.

Czech PM’s party loses election to liberal-conservative coalition | Czech Republic | The Guardian

Suggesting that the countries in the Visegrad Group are somehow similar is a myth. The Visegrad group is a strategic regional forum, that's pretty much it. Those 4 countries are significantly different in several areas, also politically. The liberal-democratic culture in these countries is historically in the following order Czechia>Slovakia>Hungary>Poland. Religion plays no role in Czechia, small role in Slovakia, bigger role in Hungary and central role in Poland.

Czechia had minimum links to Poland historically (last time in ate 1500s) and somewhat lesser links to Hungary from Czechoslovak and Austria-Hungary times. Between WW1 and WW2 Poland was essentially a hostile country towards Czechoslovakia and was a military dictatorship whereas Czechoslovakia was a liberal parliamentary democracy. That's at a time when Ireland struggled for independence, Czechoslovakia had pretty standard party system then already (Social Democrats, National Socialists, Agrarian party, People's Party)...

Etc. 😀

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010198#Comment_118010198

I've asked twice now and all you've responded with are these bland statements so I think it's best we leave it there.

Shelga

Was Frost so useless that he didn’t know what he was signing, or he did know it was a pile of rubbish (like Brexit in general) and lied openly to get it through the vote and please his overlords?

joeguevara

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010198#Comment_118010198

What agreements do you mean.

Australia agreement hasn’t been signed and essentially is detrimental to the UK as imports will undercut UK industry and agriculture.

US will take upwards of a decade. The biggest import market is China (leapfrogged Germany) and now will be subject to huge tariffs.

Export market is topped by EU which is double than the US.

Realistically as has been widely publicised the UK is the first country to impose economic sanctions on themselves and if they breach international law, its ….well not good.

Leroy42

That Lord Frost speech is completely nuts. To paraphrase, things haven't been going great, but give me everything I want and maybe they will get better!

It opened by saying that Brexit means competition, then complains that the EU don't seem to want the UK to be a success!

The man is completely off his trolley. And the timing. The know the EU is coming with proposals tomorrow, which everyone knows won't, and can't be everything they want. But they have essentially told the EU they are wasting their time even talking about it as Frost doesn't care.

They seem to be under the mistaken idea that a massive majority at home means they now are in a stronger position in their dealings with the EU. For the EU, nothing has changed, saved for they can't even hope for some sanity from the UK.

Shelga

“The fundamental difficulty is that we are being asked to run a full-scale external boundary of the EU through the centre of our country, to apply EU law without consent in part of it…”

I have to agree with Leroy that the man is nuts. The first part of the sentence above- that is the bit that he and his government said was great. The second part- is he so intellectually lacking that he fails to see the irony on being asked to do something without consent, when NI never consented to Brexit in the first place?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010357#Comment_118010357

I think the EU should turn up tomorrow with a very short document that is to all intents a blank page. The deal is the deal signed, and is due to be implemented from the endo of the month.

EU: Has all the infrastructure been put in place for the NI Protocol? Have the customs officers been hired and trained to inspect the SPS requirements? Have the Vets been hired to do this inspection of animals being imported into NI? Didn't think so, so we will restart the legal action, and will give you thirty days notice of actions we will take to encourage you to rectify all of this!

UK: You can't do that. It's unfair! We did not read the agreement! Besides we got an eighty seat majority in the election so we could rush this agreement through! It's unfair! We were under pressure!! It's unfair!!!!

And so on.

joeguevara

The whole time during the whole Brexit debacle, I think it was clear as day to Irish person the lies that were being by Boris Johnson and Daniel Cummins. The issue of the hard border was raised at the very beginning but was never mentioned to the millions of the people who were betrayed by their leaders who never gave a sh1t about us but never gave a sh1t about them either.

But while the likes of Boris Johnson and Rees Mogg betrayed their people and their country and hugging and dancing on Christmas Eve, the national of security of the island of Ireland was for the first time since being secured by John Hume and Seamus Mallon.

After all that’s what is their legacy. Fishing and Agriculture sector decimated. People divided by the lies and incitement of hatred by the biggest con I’ve ever seen. Pretty much every Brexit voter just spouted rhetoric of taking back control but couldn’t say of what, except their want of bendy bananas and three pin plugs. And then there’s this, Boris salivating over the fact that he’s giving 5.5 billion of additional funding to the NHS on its knees but left out the fact that the UK businesses must pay €7.5 billion personally just to fill out customs documents that they didn’t have to before.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/additional-54-billion-for-nhs-covid-19-response-over-next-six-months

At this stage it’s so important to blame the conman not the conned! (Credit James OBrien for that phrase).

One of the best illustrations about the divide i saw is the debate between Charlie Mullins (CEO of Pimlico Plumbers) and Tim Martin (CEO of Wetherspoons). Charlie Mullins is visibly upset about how the public has been swindled and Tim Martin just spouts bs. I’m dumbfounded about what’s occurred.

https://youtu.be/ikg1r2CqdDE

paul71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010255#Comment_118010255

A suberb summary and understanding of Czech republic. It has long been a bastion of Liberalism in Europe even in its days as a client kingdom of the Austria-Hungarian empire, and in the 1920s and 30s when it was Europes economic miracle and Democratic light. The Slovaks are suspicious too of any Greater-Hungary motives eminating from the current Hungarian Government and there are indeed some such soundings with Hungarian government funding of minority Hungarian minority communities in neighbouring countries, and the Czechs will always support the Slovaks in this regard.

The Visegard group is a marriage of convenience based on Geographic location and similarity in terms of being former occupied Warsaw pact countries, but that is all, the history, tradition and political outlook is very very much 2 polar opposites in Czech/Slovak and Polish/Hungarian.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010356#Comment_118010356

You've moved the goalposts. What you said was that the destruction of the Conservative party would advance the US' geopolitical agenda and have for third time failed to provide any sort of elaboration.

Sam Russell

Just reading the Guardian report on the Frost speech.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/12/lord-frost-wants-to-replace-northern-ireland-protocol-with-new-brexit-agreement

It is all bluster and devoid of any real content. Nothing new - in fact nothing.

If the EU do impose sanctions, the Scotch Whiskey should be the first item on the list. Frost was head of the Scottish Whiskey Association.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010345#Comment_118010345

The consistent theme has been one of kicking the can. Postpone the problem for now and maybe solve it later. Of course, this became just a repeat of the former part of this "strategy". They needed a deal so the NI protocol was ratified. Now they have a deal, they can't risk Northern Ireland doing better than the rest of the UK so, rather than assist the mainland, they need to put NI through the ringer. Again.

How anybody in NI is still a Unionist beggars belief.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010381#Comment_118010381

Does his proposed solution have dual consent? Surely if he failed to get dual consent the first time and believes that is a failure, he got dual consent now?

Leroy42

I love the fact that Frost can claim that failure to rip up NIP would be a historic misjudgement, and yet he has seemingly no notion that that very idea means that his negotiation os said deal will go down as an historic misjudgment and he has essentially thrown himself and Johnson under a bus!

Sue de Nimes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007788#Comment_118007788

I think the problem here is that Ireland (the Irish government that is) clearly does want an unstable solution. It seems clear to me that Ireland can choose between stability in NI or some sort of ideologically pure approach to "the integrity of the single market". There are two sides in Northern Ireland and we have had over 20 years of stability because of the compromise that is the GFA. The Unionists are currently losing their mind over border checks between NI and the rest of the UK. Sinn Fein will lose their mind if their are border checks the other way. The only way to keep them both happy is via compromise and that means accepting a certain degree of "leakage"

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010069#Comment_118010069

It may actually become news to some folks but the US is more than capable and continually having multiple different interests at any one moment in time. The Pacific is one such interest and it suits them to use the UK on the manner they are. Equally NI is another such interest it's a defining moment in their peacemaker moniker. They won't allow the UK break that up and there is zero evidence to base your claim off. All messages from the US allign with that from all quarters.

joeguevara

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010480#Comment_118010480

In what way does the Irish Government want an unstable solution? And what leakage are you proposing?

And what do you mean there are two sides. Firstly NI voted remain. Secondly the DUP are opposed to a hard border and want to remain part of the single market.

Hard border will incite violence, cripple NI economy. I agree that the likes of Arlene Foster wants the best of both worlds. But don’t proclaim we want instability.

Seth Brundle

Secondly the DUP are opposed to a hard border and want to remain part of the single market.

No they're not (on both counts)

Mr.Nice Guy

There will never be stability for NI because the very act of Brexit was destabilising to the careful balance that was in place. Once the British decided they were leaving the SM & CU then it became a case of which community in NI would miss out. The unionists gambled that it would be the nationalists, hoping for a hard land border, and that gamble has backfired spectacularly. In the zero-sum game that is NI politics, someone has to lose, and the unionist politicians can't go back to their electorate and admit they're the ones who have lost. And so for the forseeable future, NI politics will be about how unionism was betrayed by Dublin, Brussels, basically everyone except themselves. The Tories will indulge this fantasy as they have always been content to use unionism for their own ends, and it plays well for Johnson's increasingly English nationalist tendencies to have the EU be the bogeyman.

It's time for people here to realise that we aren't going to have friendly relations with our neighbour in the immediate short-term. Forget the Queen visit, the President's visit over there etc. It belongs to a different universe now. File that along with the 2012 Olympics as being Britain from a different time. We are now dealing with a Britain that is content to mess around with our peace process and whip up tensions within loyalism if it will help promote Tory unity.

All we're going to get from the Americans are token statements urging calm and respect for the GFA which are going in one ear and out the other. There is only one way to solve the border problem and we all know what it is. Time for our government to begin to lay the groundwork for a referendum, which is clearly coming sooner rather than later.

joeguevara

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010561#Comment_118010561

I’m open to correction but the DUP while pro Brexit were never in favour of a hard border. It was opposed to any special status that would be different to the rest of the UK but only ultra loyalists (small minority wanted a hard border). The Irish Sea border was opposed by them as it meant separation to the rest of the UK but they wanted a soft border with electronic tagging and drones.

But open to correction and apologies if incorrect. This is the policy i thought was theirs https://www.open.ac.uk/research/news/mygration-what-do-i-need-know-about-irishuk-border-question

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010345#Comment_118010345

Michel Barnier insists (only a week or two ago in media interviews) that Johnson and Frost knew exactly what they were signing up to. There was no confusion or ambiguity : they knew the Irish Protocol line by line.

RobMc59

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010069#Comment_118010069

I agree with your post,I find it extraordinary that posters believe the US will endanger it`s strategic long term military plans/alliances because a few of them are of Irish descent.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010696#Comment_118010696

You're having a laugh if you think that the UK is in a strong position in that military plan or alliance. It's very much the junior partner and is using it as way of projecting a 'global Britain' basically using the US' infrastructure.

Compared to the US the UK (France, and everyone else) is an absolute minnow on military scale and expenditure. The US simply does not need them. It's an act of diplomacy / politeness that they're even consulted.

If the UK wants to pull support from a US military strategy, there are consequences to that too i.e. being ignored.

See: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Military_Expenditures_by_Country_2019.svg

The US is very capable of pursuing multiple diplomatic strategies simultaneously. It's not in the UK's interest to lose a military alliance or significant connection with that aspect of American policy. If it wants to play nasty with the US, the response would very likely be just one of it being sidelined.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010671#Comment_118010671

The DUP will take any kind of border that separates them from the Republic: hard or soft!

joeguevara

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010639#Comment_118010639

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010639#Comment_118010639

Honestly, I think Unionists blamed the tories and indeed DUP leadership for the mess that exists. Firstly the vote was deeply polarising for them as shown by a 60/40 split. Arlene had to step down as she was scapegoated for a betrayal but most of the ethnonational demographic who voted to leave never thought it would lead to a hard Brexit.

As for a United ireland referendum, it would be the worst time to have it as division has become entrenched. If unionists saw groundwork being laid by the Irish Government violence would be inevitable and the Requirements to trigger a referendum would just not be there. The Belfast Agreement stipulates that if “at any time it appears likely” to a Northern Ireland secretary of state that a majority of those voting in Northern Ireland “would express a wish for a united Ireland”, they are obliged to call a referendum – and this is in addition to a discretionary right also specified.

There is an argument that Ireland doesn’t need a referendum as we have voted for it already (I disagree with that as it states a level of contemporaneous vote) but the way it is now, there would be difficulty in having impartial evidence that a clear majority exists.

paul71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118010696#Comment_118010696

The US is of course interested in its most powerful long term Strategic partner in this part of the world, that being France. UK is second followed closely by Turkey and then Isreal (*non Nato), but the other NATO members in the area are all in the EU, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Czech and Slovak Republics, Poland, Germay, Greece, Baltic states ect ect. That puts the UK a long long way behind the military priorities of the US.