Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121900013#Comment_121900013

Wasn't there another instance of this guff a year or so ago, another Brexs.it victory because of an MOU, maybe it was with a New England state about fish or some such?

Pretty sad when your pensioners are using 'heat banks' to keep from dying and this is what the media focusses on.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121905182#Comment_121905182

Oh, they've signed a whole bunch of MOUs with various US states — they'd be up to 7 or 8 now, I think, and there are more under discussion. They're pretty easy to negotiate because they are short and virtually content-free, and each of them is more or less a cut-and-paste of the previous one. They're full of vague aspirational language about promoting this and fostering that and sharing the intent to co-operate on the other with no actual specific or measurable commitments or obligations in them, And then they say:

This MOU does not commit either Participant to financially support any activity carried out under its provisions . . . This MOU is not legally binding under state, national, or international law and does not create any legal obligation to carry out or to financially support any activity.

They're candy floss, basically.

As noted, they have nothing to do with Brexit. Individual Member States can and do sign similar MOUs with US states; indeed, sub-national units of Member States do too — e.g. German Länder, Belgian provinces, etc. If the UK saw any value in these MOUs it could have entered into them at any time while a Member State, as could any of the UK's devolved governments.

Seriously, if the poor deluded fools who parrot the propaganda about "massive new trade deals" as a "brexit benefit" on their social media accounts actually took the trouble to read one of them — as I say, they're only a few pages long — they'd be clenching their buttocks with shame and mortification.