Brexit discussion thread III

Leroy42 · 08-06-2018 02:04PM

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Response from Downing Street:

But it was already agreed in December. Barnier says no going back on that.

This is the bit that gets me. This was already agreed and now No 10 is claiming that the EU is trying to force something.

UK have now said that they don't want to create a split with NI and as such they are looking to keep the whole UK in the Zone until 2021.

How is that any different that the original transition that was previously agreed (except for the date) to December 2020?

I don't understand why the EU have such a problem with this tha they have rejected it out of hand

Nody · 08-06-2018 02:04PM

laoch na mona wrote: »

that's basically it for a lot of people they are already struggling with no sign of any relief so brexit was a kick against the powers that be, any fears about the economy don't resonate because they share none of the benefits from the current system

Until UK crashes out and they lose even more due to food cost increase, lack of local investments, reduction in jobs etc. I'm honestly curious what's going to be the next boogyman in the UK (obviously EU will still be around for several years as an excuse) as the reason for all evil.

Leroy42 wrote: »

This is the bit that gets me. This was already agreed and now No 10 is claiming that the EU is trying to force something.

UK have now said that they don't want to create a split with NI and as such they are looking to keep the whole UK in the Zone until 2021.

How is that any different that the original transition that was previously agreed (except for the date) to December 2020?

I don't understand why the EU have such a problem with this tha they have rejected it out of hand

Because there are multiple issues with it.

1) The original transition extension required that the solution to the NI border was agreed inc. backstop; and that solution was a permanent solution without time limit (the UK solution has a time limit)
2) It keeps UK in the CU but that's legally not possible as they leave on March 30th as per article 50 (remember the extension negotiated is a good will one; they have left EU by that stage inc. all FTA) - Hence all treaties would need to be reapproved for an exception that somehow UK is now in the EU again where as NI can be treated as a region of exception rather than a country
3) UK can negotiate new trade deals as of March 31st; that does not work with being in a CU with EU to have UK operate as a middle country for imports due to this

First Up · 08-06-2018 02:23PM

Nody wrote: »

Until UK crashes out and they lose even more due to food cost increase, lack of local investments, reduction in jobs etc. I'm honestly curious what's going to be the next boogyman in the UK (obviously EU will still be around for several years as an excuse) as the reason for all evil.

Because there are multiple issues with it.

1) The original transition extension required that the solution to the NI border was agreed inc. backstop; and that solution was a permanent solution without time limit (the UK solution has a time limit)
2) It keeps UK in the CU but that's legally not possible as they leave on March 30th as per article 50 (remember the extension negotiated is a good will one; they have left EU by that stage inc. all FTA) - Hence all treaties would need to be reapproved for an exception that somehow UK is now in the EU again where as NI can be treated as a region of exception rather than a country
3) UK can negotiate new trade deals as of March 31st; that does not work with being in a CU with EU to have UK operate as a middle country for imports due to this

It isn't a time limit. Its the date by when they "expect" all the trade issues with the EU to be sorted. A date was put in to appease the hard-line Brexiteers and they can decide if that's enough for them or not.

keane2097 · 08-06-2018 02:29PM

First Up wrote: »

It isn't a time limit. Its the date by when they "expect" all the trade issues with the EU to be sorted. A date was put in to appease the hard-line Brexiteers and they can decide if that's enough for them or not.

And then later they inevitably claim it was a hard deadline regardless of whether an alternative has been agreed.

flatty · 08-06-2018 02:39PM

I'm stuck in the UK as my wife refuses to move back. She's a remain voting, professional, intelligent independent person. When I showed her the government enquiries about potential rationing, she just replied that half the population could do with some rationing.
I honestly think that whilst it will be pretty bad, grim in fact, most decent folk will shuffle on, the brexiteers won't be safely able to walk down a street safely, (nor will anyone else, as I expect crime to ramp up), and ironically, the yobs who voted for brexit will be screaming about their rights as welfare, NHS, policing and teaching budgets are slashed, and they struggle to pay for roaming charges.
I still think Scotland is the most interesting player in this

EdgeCase · 08-06-2018 02:40PM

From the EU perspective, they're basically prepared to make a special arrangement for Northern Ireland. It's a small place with very unusual circumstances.

It's of limited impact on the EU internal market, its being stable is very important to an EU member (Ireland) and the EU has no desire to see brexit undermining the peace settlement and status quo.

The DUP are rejecting what could be mana from heaven economic status for NI, placing it as some kind of special status that has huge advantages in terms of being potentially within both markets, albeit with some kind of balancing controls.

The EU isn't going to allow the entire UK to do what was propsped as a special arrangement for a fragile region as it would have serious implications for the internal market.

So, really the DUP are preventing brexit as the only other option will be remaining in the EU for most things.

J Mysterio · 08-06-2018 02:45PM

At the end of the day, it's quite simple.

The UK decided to leave the EU amd triggered article 50.

Despite them leaving the EU, they want to retain the benefits of being an EU member - trading arrangements, customs, EU programmes - not possible.

The UK needs to accept the responsibility for their actions, their choice.

The UK also have to accept responsibility for NI and the border, as they created that mess also. The EU have offered a very generous solution for this. The UK wont accept it because they are propped up in government by a NI party. They already agreed to the solution.

The EU are willing to look at a bespoke solution for the UK, but YM has set forth so many red lines, that it is impossible to do this.

So... The UK basically need to face down the DUP, or have a hard Brexit.

J Mysterio · 08-06-2018 02:47PM

EdgeCase wrote: »

From the EU perspective, they're basically prepared to make a special arrangement for Northern Ireland. It's a small place with very unusual circumstances.

It's of limited impact on the EU internal market, its being stable is very important to an EU member (Ireland) and the EU has no desire to see brexit undermining the peace settlement and status quo.

The DUP are rejecting what could be mana from heaven economic status for NI, placing it as some kind of special status that has huge advantages in terms of being potentially within both markets, albeit with some kind of balancing controls.

The EU isn't going to allow the entire UK to do what was propsped as a special arrangement for a fragile region as it would have serious implications for the internal market.

So, really the DUP are preventing brexit as the only other option will be remaining in the EU for most things.

Damnit, you basically said what I meant to as I was tapping away on my phone :pac:

First Up · 08-06-2018 03:02PM

keane2097 wrote: »

First Up wrote: »

It isn't a time limit. Its the date by when they "expect" all the trade issues with the EU to be sorted. A date was put in to appease the hard-line Brexiteers and they can decide if that's enough for them or not.

And then later they inevitably claim it was a hard deadline regardless of whether an alternative has been agreed.

They won't because the legal text will be clear that anything agreed is permanent - or "all weather" as Barnier has described it.

Clare in Exile · 08-06-2018 03:13PM

In an ideal world the British Govt could sell this as the DUP dragging the whole of the UK into a hard Brexit due to their intransigence, but since May has stated that no British Govt could agree to a border in the Irish Sea we are stuck where we are.

Norn Iron is being handed a golden ticket by being offered special status (a foot in both markets), but the DUP seem unwilling to accept that gift. It may be something that comes back to bite them on the ass as the people of NI are hit by the realities of a hard Brexit...

LuckyLloyd · 08-06-2018 03:25PM

Leroy42 wrote: »

Why would that be? Surely the backstop is effectively staying in the EU in all but name? Doesn't it make sense from an EU POV for the whole UK to stay in rather than just NI?

The EU want a definitive withdrawal agreement. It is not in their interest to have Brexit uncertainty rumble on long term.

Snickers Man · 08-06-2018 03:35PM

briany wrote: »

This is spiel by people like Farage, and massively hypocritical. There's no way the whole Brexit movement wouldn't have been crying bloody murder for a second referendum in the event of a 52-48 loss.

Here's what Farage himself told the Mirror in May 2016

Indeed. Go back to the original guru of Britan alone, the man whose malign legacy many Brexiteers continue to cherish today: Enoch Powell. What did he say back in 1975, the night that Britain voted overwhelmingly to stay IN the then Common Market?

"I'm always in favour of a question being reopened as important as this. It has been re-opened and now we have a provisional result that takes us on to the next stage."
Why do you say a provisional result?
"Oh I'm relying on the government's official statement.....'our continued membership will depend on the continuing assent of parliament' ..and since parliament will be continuously re-elected by the electorate, this is an ongoing debate."
Are you suggesting that from now on, you and others who feel like you should continue a parliamentary struggle to get Britain out?
"But of course!"

In other words, referendums are all very well but the parliament is the true sovereign under the British system and if Parliament changes its mind, then what they say goes.
See for yourselves!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4OWslOroaw

Peregrinus · 08-06-2018 03:48PM

judeboy101 wrote: »

No but if he is happy and coveney&co thing what may released constitutes "significant progress" I would not be confident that FG will stand up to EU. Remember when edna came back with our "special case" status for EU re the banks. ?

This doesn't make any sense. Because Davis is happy with this document, you think the EU is going to put pressure on Ireland? Why? Do you think Davis dictates the EU's position now?

This document, remember, was hammered out within the British government, in a ding-dong battle between its various factions. The EU had nothing to do with it. When Davis says he's happy, he means he's happy that the UK now has something to put to the EU on this point. When Coveney says it represents "signficant progress", he doesn't mean that it represents significant progress in the UK's negotiations with the EU; he means it represents significant progress in the Tory party's argument with itself. They are finally getting to a point where they are ready to put a position, or at least half a position, to the EU.

That's signficant progress in the sense that it make dialogue more possible than it is when the UK doesn't know what it wants. Ireland and the EU have been telling the UK for months that they need to put some text on the table, and now they have. But I wouldn't be reading anything more than that into Coveney's comment.

It has already been widely noted that the Tories are tearing themselves apart in a battle over different options, all of which have already been rejected by the EU, and for good reason. Davis is quite stupid, but he is not so stupid as not to know this. His happiness has nothing to do with an expectation that the EU will accept the UK's draft text.

The view they take of this in Brussels is that the UK is not working out its bottom line here; they are working out their opening position, from which they will then negotiate with the EU. In those negotiations, as in all the EU/UK Brexit negotiations to date, the UK will move a lot further from its opening position than the EU will, because the EU has in every respect the greater bargaining power.

If you think that, because Davis is happy, the EU will therefore fall over backwards, accept the document without question, and then beat Ireland about the head and neck with a broken bottle until we accept it too, I think you are completely wrong. The fact that the UK has finally picked a position, or at least half a position, to put to the EU does not mean that the EU is going to accept the UK's position, no matter how glowing the terms that Davis uses to describe it.

Zubeneschamali · 08-06-2018 03:49PM

flatty wrote: »

I'm stuck in the UK as my wife refuses to move back. ...
I still think Scotland is the most interesting player in this

If I was in your shoes, I think plan A is stick it out, plan B is scope out the return to Ireland in case the worst actually happens, but maybe plan C is head for the newly independent Scotland?

Havockk · 08-06-2018 03:58PM

J Mysterio wrote: »

May has given her full support and backing to Johnson after latest comments. How can this man be backed? He is the Foreign Secretary - he represents the UK around the world. It has been gaffe after gaffe, insulting people around the world and not understanding diplomacy in the least. He is a buffoon of the highest order. He is also constantly undermining her, suggesting yesterday that Trump would do better even. She should fire him, but she doesnt have the guts.

She knows she cant. I would doubt if she fired the shaved baboon she would last 3 days before she would be ousted.

Peregrinus · 08-06-2018 04:07PM

Leroy42 wrote: »

Why would that be? Surely the backstop is effectively staying in the EU in all but name? Doesn't it make sense from an EU POV for the whole UK to stay in rather than just NI?

No, the backstop isn't staying in the EU in all but name. It's staying in the Customs Union, and staying in some aspects of the Single Market but, crucially, not accepting Freedom of Movement (and probably not accepting ECJ jurisdiction). That's exactly the kind of cherry-picking that the UK was confidently assuming it would get in the months after the referendum, and that the EU has always strongly held out against.

The EU is prepared to compromise and allow this degree of cherry-picking in Northern Ireland only, because NI is a small and contained area, the openness of the border is of considerable political significance, and the threat to the integrity of the Single Market is manageable. But allowing the whole UK to have this status would be a completely different matter.

If the UK were to propose a backstop of remaining in the CU and remaining fully in the Single Market, the EU have signalled that they would be very receptive to that.

Sam Russell · 08-06-2018 04:25PM

One thing that appears to have been missed is that Barnier said that there are already checks on the ferries to NI for phytosanitary and agriculture purposes.

EdgeCase · 08-06-2018 05:24PM

Bear in mind that there have been similar proposals to impose security checks and border-in-the-sea type serious going back quite a few years before Brexit too.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jan/15/uk-irish-republic-border-passports

There were also immigration controls between the two islands from 1939 until 1952.

Leonard Hofstadter · 08-06-2018 06:19PM

Not sure if this has already been reported, but Barnier has said that the EU won't be 'bullied' by the Brexiteers (to use his word).

I don't think we need to be worried about the EU throwing us under the bus at all, and Varadkar said yesterday that a time limited backstop is not acceptable to us. After all, backstop means backstop.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-michel-barnier-negotiations-stopgap-eu-withdrawal-a8389501.html

Strazdas · 08-06-2018 06:30PM

J Mysterio wrote: »

At the end of the day, it's quite simple.

The UK decided to leave the EU amd triggered article 50.

Despite them leaving the EU, they want to retain the benefits of being an EU member - trading arrangements, customs, EU programmes - not possible.

The UK needs to accept the responsibility for their actions, their choice.

The UK also have to accept responsibility for NI and the border, as they created that mess also. The EU have offered a very generous solution for this. The UK wont accept it because they are propped up in government by a NI party. They already agreed to the solution.

The EU are willing to look at a bespoke solution for the UK, but YM has set forth so many red lines, that it is impossible to do this.

So... The UK basically need to face down the DUP, or have a hard Brexit.

An unspoken part of this is that the British government is incapable of telling the 17m voters they made an idiotic decision and voted for a disaster. Sooner than do this, they have to come up with nonsense about 'democracy' and 'the will of the people' and try to find ways to stay in the Single Market without informing the public what a calamitous decision they made.

An Ciarraioch · 08-06-2018 06:44PM

Strazdas wrote: »

J Mysterio wrote: »

At the end of the day, it's quite simple.

The UK decided to leave the EU amd triggered article 50.

Despite them leaving the EU, they want to retain the benefits of being an EU member - trading arrangements, customs, EU programmes - not possible.

The UK needs to accept the responsibility for their actions, their choice.

The UK also have to accept responsibility for NI and the border, as they created that mess also. The EU have offered a very generous solution for this. The UK wont accept it because they are propped up in government by a NI party. They already agreed to the solution.

The EU are willing to look at a bespoke solution for the UK, but YM has set forth so many red lines, that it is impossible to do this.

So... The UK basically need to face down the DUP, or have a hard Brexit.

An unspoken part of this is that the British government is incapable of telling the 17m voters they made an idiotic decision and voted for a disaster. Sooner than do this, they have to come up with nonsense about 'democracy' and 'the will of the people' and try to find ways to stay in the Single Market without informing the public what a calamitous decision they made.

And right on cue - a Bloomberg article claiming May is considering keeping NI aligned to the Single Market, while rUK only stays in the Customs Union. Of course, you're already ahead of me here, but the logical follow-on is Arlene giving out, and May promptly says to the Brexiteers that the whole UK has to stay in the SM in order "to preserve the Union":

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-06-08/u-k-said-to-mull-keeping-n-ireland-in-single-market-rules?__twitter_impression=true

J Mysterio · 08-06-2018 06:44PM

Strazdas wrote: »

An unspoken part of this is that the British government is incapable of telling the 17m voters they made an idiotic decision and voted for a disaster. Sooner than do this, they have to come up with nonsense about 'democracy' and 'the will of the people' and try to find ways to stay in the Single Market without informing the public what a calamitous decision they made.

Think the Tories would rather burn the place down then admit to chasing unicorns.

McGiver · 08-06-2018 07:38PM

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

That's true. But they had a chance to change that system as recently as 2011 and opted not to.

Nope, the reform was only a cosmetic change, it would have been another form of majority system, not a PR system. I think if truly PR was on the table it would passed.

oscarBravo · 08-06-2018 08:00PM

McGiver wrote: »

Nope, the reform was only a cosmetic change, it would have been another form of majority system, not a PR system. I think if truly PR was on the table it would passed.

I think the STV aspect is arguably more important than the PR aspect. FPTP is an abomination before man and dog.

Sam Russell · 08-06-2018 08:07PM

McGiver wrote: »

Nope, the reform was only a cosmetic change, it would have been another form of majority system, not a PR system. I think if truly PR was on the table it would passed.

The 'reform' was for an alternative vote. That is the voter chooses their first choice and the second choice. STV was considered too complex.

How can 'Put the candidates in the order os your choice' be complex? You just put them in the order of your choice, whatever that is.

It was deliberately designed to fail.

An Ciarraioch · 08-06-2018 08:12PM

Sam Russell wrote: »

McGiver wrote: »

Nope, the reform was only a cosmetic change, it would have been another form of majority system, not a PR system. I think if truly PR was on the table it would passed.

The 'reform' was for an alternative vote. That is the voter chooses their first choice and the second choice. STV was considered too complex.

How can 'Put the candidates in the order os your choice' be complex? You just put them in the order of your choice, whatever that is.

It was deliberately designed to fail.

It was calculated that Blair would have won an even larger landslide in '97 under AV than using FPTP:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lessons-from-the-past-why-tories-oppose-av-2220663.html

BonnieSituation · 08-06-2018 09:07PM

Sam Russell wrote: »

One thing that appears to have been missed is that Barnier said that there are already checks on the ferries to NI for phytosanitary and agriculture purposes.

Missed by who? HMG?

They know full well things are different, but the paper thin majority with the DUPers changes matters.

We'll get there eventually.

Unionism isn't known for for consensus and pragmatism.

Sam Russell · 08-06-2018 09:11PM

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Sam Russell wrote: »

The 'reform' was for an alternative vote. That is the voter chooses their first choice and the second choice. STV was considered too complex.

How can 'Put the candidates in the order os your choice' be complex? You just put them in the order of your choice, whatever that is.

It was deliberately designed to fail.

Missed by who? HMG?

They know full well things are different, but the paper thin majority with the DUPers changes matters.

We'll get there eventually.

Unionism isn't known for for consensus and pragmatism.

It was missed by those reporting - like the BBC and RTE. Perhaps they did not notice because he was talking in French.

BonnieSituation · 08-06-2018 09:12PM

McGiver wrote: »

Nope, the reform was only a cosmetic change, it would have been another form of majority system, not a PR system. I think if truly PR was on the table it would passed.

That's nonsense. PR wasn't an option and even if it was it would never have passed because apparently it was "too confusing"!
Do you remember the AV campaign?

Before it even got to referendum, which was part of the coalition deal with the Lib Dems, PR-STV was roundly criticised and criticised. AV was the only show in town from then on.

"If it's such a good system, why is it only used in 3 countries, NZ, Malta and ROI?"

That was the crap that was consistently discussed.

On top of that you had Labour and the Cons against AV.

AV isn't perfect and I wouldn't inflict it upon any nation but when the alternative is FPTP then it's a no-brainer.

BonnieSituation · 08-06-2018 09:15PM

Sam Russell wrote: »

It was missed by those reporting - like the BBC and RTE. Perhaps they did not notice because he was talking in French.

The BBC don't give a crap.

RTÉ probably aren't reporting on it given they likely have mentioned that dozens of times and take it for granted.

Like us, they know what's what.

Nothing Barnier said today was new.

Brexit discussion thread III

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