Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119264092#Comment_119264092

"You are entitled to opinion, not fact. We won't go a week with the UK's policy should it pass before the end of the year without checks going up between us and the EU. Deny it all you like, it's as simple as that."

So you're claiming forward looking predictions are now fact not fiction?

Also, I'm not denying it. I'm saying yes, the UK govt actions are having a negative impact on Ireland, who here is denying that? What I'm not saying is the EU can somehow click its fingers and pull the UK back in line. What actions to you suggest the EU takes (or should have taken by now) which would have eliminated all destabilising impact on Ireland from the UK's car crash decision making? Please answer with specific examples and what you would expect the outcome of said action(s) to be?

You honestly need to calm down. The UK is a sovereign country and entitled to leave the EU. It's not entitled to renege on the WA and NIP and it will be held to account on those but those are civil and political matters which will take time to resolve.

You're getting way too excited.

Ireland has been dealing with British colonialism for 800 years. The job is nearly done, so what if it means a few more years of inobtrusive and inconsequential risk assessed checks on goods going RoI to EU? If we make that very modest sacrifice to protect the EU it'll put us in even more credit with EU decision makers and the US etc etc. Our soft power continues to grow whilst BoJo and co are burning theirs and pulling up the draw bridge as they retreat to little insular England.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119264140#Comment_119264140

How does soapboxing your chicken little narrative on this small Irish website keep Ireland in the Single Market, assuming for the sake of argument that said narrative has one shred of evidence which it doesn't?

salonfire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119264112#Comment_119264112

Still waiting for the EU to act after the UK unilaterally extended the grace period of the import checks to NI. Or to act when not given full access to data.

The EU does not act first or second. I don't know why you think that is going to change.

The EU is entirely toothless. We see it time and again. Hungry and Poland. Countries routinely ignoring defecit limits. Ignoring rules on state aid. Pouring billions upon billions into Greece. Ignoring sanctions against Russia. When was the last time the EU ever took tough and decisive action? Punishing turf cutters in the West of Ireland excepted of course.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119265029#Comment_119265029

What are you talking about ?

I've said nothing about wanting the EU to act.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119265029#Comment_119265029

Utter nonsense. It can't take a firmer line on Poland and Hungary because of its rules. Brexiters seem to hate rules but they're there for a reason.

fly_agaric

@54and56

I'd agree with you on the history of it (in https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119262821/#Comment_119262821). It is about the Conservative party (hard anti-EU element that pushed through Brexit) doing the EU withdrawal agreement over because it wasn't done right as they see it. NI was left with some EU involvement in it (bad). The Ireland/NI border weapon wasn't whipped out for advantage + used to wound the EU as much as possible (a missed opportunity, and UK doesn't really hold much else over the EU to damage it). Their war with the EU is not over. It won't end when they finally get their way & UK reneges on the NI protocol (as the EU will still exist no matter what happens & that's their problem!).

ambro25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119265029#Comment_119265029

<sigh>

5 seconds Googling, and oh look: https://www.dw.com/en/eu-triggers-rule-of-law-procedure-against-hungary/a-61607618

Not wasting time debunking any of your other Brexitist falsehoods, that make up the entirety of your post.

Why do you even bother posting this rubbish in here? This is politics, not AH, the knowledge baseline of your average reader/poster is significantly higher and better, than the average Brexiter dullard who’d swallow that sort of vacuous, ill-informed rethoric.

murphaph

Poland and Hungary are also still members so the politics are entirely different. The UK is a third country.

salonfire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119265607#Comment_119265607

Are you seriously - seriously - trying to deny that state aid rules are not ever broken or that deficit limits are not broken? It's you that needs to go to AH then.

There's no particular reason to believe the EU will react if the UK breaks the NIP.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119265790#Comment_119265790

Apart from the fact they've already restarted their legal case against the UK and have explicitly said they'll react?

There is a reason the UK has kept, rather pathetically, backing down over their threats.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119265790#Comment_119265790

More evidence-free Brexiter nonsense. The EU is taking legal action for now and can escalate when and if necessary. It's the adult way of dealing with the situation.

ambro25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119265790#Comment_119265790

The EU’s reaction to the UK breaking the NIP is already long roadmapped, and conditioned on the actual breaking of the NIP, should the UK’s negotiation with itself of the past 6 years spill over into actual law-breaking.

Same as the EU’s reaction to Poland’s and Hungary’s respective nationalist policies, which is now unfolding for both members after they failed to take heed of repeated warnings.

I’m not “seriously trying to deny” anything: I’m pointing you to the double reality that the EU is neither belligerent with members and ‘non-member partners’ (3rd countries with agreements, like the UK is now), nor placid in the face of one-f**ckmanship by disruptive actors. A double reality demonstrated over decades by now.

If you’ve been expecting the EU to engage in May, Johnson, Orban <…> -like rethoric, maybe look at how the EU does things historically - and always gets its (members’) way in the end, because 27 Club making up a sizeable portion of the G20.

Feel free to get that memo, or to stay exercised about unlikely outcomes.

reslfj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119265139#Comment_119265139

"...EU’s reaction to Poland...

Due to the very high number of Ukrainians (some millions) now living in Poland as refugees, the EU is a bit more lenient with Poland right now.

Not that I approve much and we - the EU - will be back, unless Poland elects another PM e.g. Donald Tusk.

Lars 😀

landofthetree

https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/food-prices-here-the-second-most-expensive-in-the-eurozone-and-rising-41801226.html

The Brits pay nothing into CAP. They get free access to cheap food from farmers/producers all over Europe. We pay into cap to help out farmers and pay more. What a great deal for us.

fly_agaric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119266596#Comment_119266596

Well (if very shortsighted + foolish) CAP looks like a "bad deal" until you suddenly don't have any of your own food (agriculture becomes uneconomic without the subsidies and is destroyed by cheaper imports) and noone else has any spare to export to you. Then you click your fingers + wave money about but unfortunately the farmers and the food they produce just won't magick itself into exsistance...what do we do now??

Given you predict EU-wide economic collapse and basically the end of the world (for us in Europe) due to resource shortages and hyper-inflation in your other posts, this free market fundamentalist position about food and be clever & just import it all, is a bit inconsistent.

Bit cynical

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119266596#Comment_119266596

In fairness, nor do Brit farmers get paid out of CAP funds so it kind of evens out.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119267489#Comment_119267489

And they lose out double if the UK is buying EU veg which is also taking money out of the UK economy and into ours.

Especially if your the Polish truck driver the English had to hire at a premium to deliver it 🤣

20silkcut

CAP is not about cheap food or even food security. Unless you consider that a mountain of powdered milk or industrial quantities of beef makes us food secure if the worst came to the worst.

It’s an entirely different animal more to do with the clout of continental farmers than anything else and much as I hate to say it the poster is right the Brits are getting a free lunch on this if you look at it with Milton Friedman spectacles, but then that totally ignores societal and cultural consequences of getting rid of the CAP. Consequences that are being felt in farming communities in Britain right now.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119268883#Comment_119268883

Wasnt it most about stopping French farmers from going bankrupt and rioting when the EEC opened up to weaker economies with cheap labour ?

20silkcut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119268952#Comment_119268952

Yes France, Germany and the Netherlands and most of the EU 27 have huge Agricultural sectors. Protection of those sectors is a cornerstone of the EU. Milk quotas , Sugar beet quotas, intervention , (remember the wine lakes and butter mountains) subsidies etc were all tools used by the EU to protect those markets. This is one of the key differences between Britain and the EU 27. Britain was historically the workshop of the world not an Agricultural stronghold and never fully bought into the ideology of the CAP.

The big scare in farming circles 10-15 years ago was Peter Mandelson leading the EU negotiating team at the WTO. He was pushing a very British ideology in those negotiations.

newport2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119263702#Comment_119263702

This. It's all noise and empty threats, distractions to keep the UK media busy and looking elsewhere.

Rafael Behr summed it up nicely:

" One drama is not over before the next one has begun. Seven days in Johnson time can age you more than a week.

What was the spur for Geidt’s departure? Something to do with steel tariffs. Not lockdown parties? Too slow! Now we’re breaking international law to rip up the Brexit deal. Oh wait, now we’re deporting refugees to Rwanda and railing against human rights law. And what was that about Boris, Carrie and a top job at the Foreign Office? A treehouse at Chequers? £150,000! Someone call the ethics adviser. Oh, there isn’t one.

Meanwhile, the trains aren’t running, the foundations of England’s union with Scotland are groaning ominously and it’s all someone else’s fault. It is exhausting to pay attention, resisting the temptation to tune out for sanity’s sake. "

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/29/tories-boris-johnson-government-byelection-rwanda-rail-strikes

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270256#Comment_119270256

According to Private Eye the real reason The Times pulled its story on BoJo lobbying for his then mistress (now current wife) Carrie to get a £100,000 a year job wasn't actually that he tried to secure the position for her but that an MP walked into his office and found Carrie doing her best Monica Lewinski impression 😮

https://twitter.com/GerryHassan/status/1542077435193204736

newport2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270354#Comment_119270354

Ye, saw that. Still trying to get the image out of my head. The Times phrased it something like "Boris's relationship with Carrie became apparent".

All the more reason for the Times to print it as opposed to pulling it. Not many people would keep their job if caught doing that in the office!

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270373#Comment_119270373

BoJo = BloJo 😂

pixelburp

I know it's wildly beyond the scope of both the thread, and the tone of the forum ... but I really do struggle with the idea that a series of presumably intelligent, worldly women find Boris Johnson attractive - arousing in fact. Johnson's not especially attractive, in fact his public persona insists upon being a mess, while his intelligence appears to be ... questionable beyond his Machiavellian tendencies.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270408#Comment_119270408

This isn't really constructive but I've a coworker who knew Symonds and she never got why she went with Johnson. She's not seen her since either.

I've a friend who goes into what I called "Wikipedia mode". He just starts talking at me every so often about some book he's been reading or someone from history he's been learning about. Apparently, Peter the Great spent some time in Deptford. Who knew?

I feel like Johnson would be like that in private. Lots of empty talk.

Igotadose

Pro EU nationals group in the UK is going to be able to bring a lawsuit against the Home Office over their failing registration system

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/home-office-eu-citizens-brexit-watchdog-b2112744.html

PokeHerKing

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270408#Comment_119270408

Status and power can breed attraction. Then there's the obvious climbing the corporate ladder by blowing your boss route.

Women might rail against it in public but in private its pretty common.

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270408#Comment_119270408

BloJo has power, BloJo is a risk taker and BloJo has a carefully crafted chaotic but charming schoolboy type character which he turns on in social setting that some people fall for.

Power X Risk X Chaotic Schoolboy Charm = plenty of opportunity to score with easily besotted women.

looksee

I'd say he might be considered attractive in a public schoolboy kind of way. Doesn't appeal to me at all.