kuro68k wrote: » The British government is going to take it right to the cliff edge and hope that someone else compromises. Of course they have their excuses already lined up if no-one does, only real question is who they will blame.
Leroy42 wrote: » I mean, in terms of the DUP and abortion, equal right for marriage etc, we would need to move backwards. Sure the schools etc is a problem, but they already have schools which can be taken over by the state and we have a system of Educate together ready to do it. I fully agree on the anthem at matches, but that is a personal thing. Would it help, maybe and I wouldn't be against it, but it starts to look like BRexit again. They want a UI because they no longer see the benefits of being in the UK, but they want Ireland to change for them so they get to keep everything they like. Choices are just that, a choice. You rarely get everything you want. Is staying in the UK after Brexit worth it given that the alternative is a UI. One can only make the choice based on the options in front of you. If Ireland is so bad, don't vote to join.
lawred2 wrote: » Leroy42 wrote: » dropping, changing or lessening some of our more tainted symbols of nationalism - the flag and the anthem.. I don't view either as tainted and would be 100% against changing or dropping either. Should add in relation to UI I wouldn't be in favour of it at this time for social, security & economic reasons.
Leroy42 wrote: » dropping, changing or lessening some of our more tainted symbols of nationalism - the flag and the anthem..
badtoro wrote: » I don't view either as tainted and would be 100% against changing or dropping either. Should add in relation to UI I wouldn't be in favour of it at this time for social, security & economic reasons.
Hurrache wrote: » You'd have to wonder what these Brexit secretaries do with their time outside of negotiationshttps://twitter.com/wdjstraw/status/1060446473446477824
Rain Ascending wrote: » Normally, you would have to be careful of tweets like this from what is a senior Labour figure like Adonis. However, elements do sound familiar. Remember only a week or so ago, it was reported that Raab proposed (*) to Coveney that the backstop should be limited to 3 months. Lillington (May's trusted lieutenant, now charged with improving the relationship with Dublin) had to do "clean-up" by withdrawing that proposal, again (reportedly) to Raab's fury. Raab is clearly not part of May's trusted inner circle. But with reports like this, one would have to say that he is also not on the same page as the rest of the UK negotiating team either. (*) Actually I'm being generous here, the verb used in the Irish Times report that I'm looking at was "demanded"!
badtoro wrote: » lawred2 wrote: » I don't view either as tainted and would be 100% against changing or dropping either. Should add in relation to UI I wouldn't be in favour of it at this time for social, security & economic reasons. I would agree with you on that. If we were going to start messing around with anthems, especially in relation to GAA county games, we would end up with Amhrán na bhFiann in the RoI and God Save the Queen in NI. Even if, as in the Ulster championship, it was two counties from the RoI playing at a neutral venue in NI. Please God, let nobody suggest another Ireland`s Call.
lawred2 wrote: » I don't view either as tainted and would be 100% against changing or dropping either. Should add in relation to UI I wouldn't be in favour of it at this time for social, security & economic reasons.
Leroy42 wrote: » But you are stating that as if nothing else changes. After Brexit, who knows how NI is going to operate. Will the UK continue to support it? Will the economy continue to provide jobs for people? You are arguing as if they would lose and gain nothing. I don't know the answer, only the future will tell us, but it is wrong to argue that Ireland must change to accommodate them (there is a totally separate argument over the future of healthcare).
Peregrinus wrote: » Yes. But the reality was that the 52% who voted for Brexit was in reality made up of minorities which have voted for different, and inconsistent, Brexits. There was no actual Brexit that May could deliver which would command the support of the entire 52%. Yet she had to deliver Brexit. What she needed to do, then, was to develop a Brexit capable of securing some degree of consensus assent. The 48% who lost the referendum understood that there had to be some kind of Brexit, and many of them would have been open to asseting to, if not enthusiastically supporting, a Brexit which was obviously crafted to take account of their concerns and to try to accommodate them to some degree. So what May should have done was to target not a hard Brexit designed to gratify her own party's right wing, but a soft Brexit designed to satisfy the broad middle of the Tory party, and to win over Remainers by seeking to alleviate their worst concerns. That would have required her to face down the right of her party. She bottled out. Again, this is a failure to grasp the nettle. The nettle she needed to grasp there was telling her own Brexiters that until there was a settled consensus in the UK on the aims and outcome of Brexit, and the path to acheiving them, serving A50 notice was premature, and not in the country's interest. And, again, she ducked grasping the nettle.
Enzokk wrote: » Just another update and this time from Coveney,https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1060481678530015237https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1060481684599128064 This is very good from our politicians in the way they are tempering expectations based on the leaks we are getting from "sources".
Enzokk wrote: » Others have posted the quotes from Raab on how he didn't understand that the UK relies on the closest port to the EU in regards to trade, but here is the video of him saying it.https://twitter.com/indeox/status/1060472540659879936
Peregrinus wrote: » I disagree. When it mattered, May shirked grasping the nettle. And it particularly mattered in two areas. First, she chose to foster and encourage a have-cake-and-eat-it approach to Brexit which helped give rise to expectations that could never be met, and laid the grounds for the UK government to adopt red lines that it should never have adopted. The chickens that are coming home to roost now were hatched then. And, secondly,when the time came to stop saying "Brexit means Brexit" and actually decide what kind of Brexit would be targetted, May chose to target a hard brexit to please the right wing of her own party, even though she knew there was no majority for this in the country, and that doing so would sabotage fatally any prospects of developing a consensus Brexit that could secure the assent of remainers who accepted that they had lost the referendum (which, initially, was a very large group).
For far too long British politicians, journalists and voters have enjoyed a patently distorted vision of the nation as indispensable world player. Now the nation is facing the painful truth that the UK is not as pre-eminent as it has liked to believe.
Adjusting to a reduced status will require a reality check in our media and our politics and a touch of humility. If Brexit helps the UK come to a more accurate realisation of its global significance, some good may yet come out of this wretched business. Still, it seems an expensive way to learn a lesson.
LuckyLloyd wrote: » At the outset of the process, there were big strategic decisions to be made about the type of Brexit deal that was desirable. A strong determined leader would have kicked off conversations on the Border, CU and SM membership and got out ahead of the difficulties in agreeing a British position *before* triggering A50.
charlie14 wrote: » I would agree with you on that. If we were going to start messing around with anthems, especially in relation to GAA county games, we would end up with Amhrán na bhFiann in the RoI and God Save the Queen in NI. Even if, as in the Ulster championship, it was two counties from the RoI playing at a neutral venue in NI. Please God, let nobody suggest another Ireland`s Call.
prawnsambo wrote: » If you look at what they've been doing since she took over, it's hard to come to any conclusion other than that she didn't seem to understand what the WA was supposed to acheive or that she knew and tried to use it for something else. We can look at David Davis trotting around Europe and Liam Fox, the world and assume they were stupid. Or we can look at what they were trying to do and conclude that their motive was to try and scam something outside the Article 50 process. Article 50 is tiny. And the meat of it is in one paragraph. You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to not be able to understand it. So why all the visits to European heads of state and ignoring Barnier? Was she just trying to scam a new treaty for the UK? With the triggering of A50 as the ticking time bomb to pressure all the EU leaders into caving. And as the clock has run down, the dawning realisation that this is actually not going to work and the bomb that she started the timer on is going to explode in the UK and not in Europe as she'd expected.
Tell me how wrote: » A strong determined leader would have set out to do this. Yes. But then, what is happening now may have happened before the invoking of article 50 and therefore have led to claims that May was sabotaging the will of the people and she would have been removed. There were already dissenting voices suggesting that she had campaigned to remain and so could not lead the effort to leave. I suppose what I am wondering is, could any leader have made a better job of leading the UK government given the precariousness of the environment which existed then and continues to do so?
Seth Brundle wrote: » That's really unbelievable. It's like he is aware of the obvious but (and this is the bit I can't understand), why look to distance his country from it?
RobMc59 wrote: » when people say the UK is bribing NI that is incorrect
"We will have to fight against those who want to demolish Europe with their fear, their populist deceit," the EU chief Brexit negotiator told the European People’s Party (EPP) congress in Helsinki. "And their attacks against the European project. There is now a Farage in every country."
LuckyLloyd wrote: » IIt also seems to be lacking in essential civil service capability and is not up to the magnitude of the task.
Tell me how wrote: » I think the above doesn't give enough credit to the reality which was she would have been removed immediately if she appeared to be an out and out obstructionist.
Seth Brundle wrote: » Michel Barnier attacks those who want to undermine the EU: There is now a Farage in every country.
Zubeneschamali wrote: » No-one is saying she had to obstruct Brexit. Imagine if, instead of setting out her ridiculous red lines, she had said: "The UK has voted to leave the EU, and it is my job a Prime Minister to deliver on that mandate. Whatever form Brexit takes, the EU will be our nearest and largest trading partner, so it is in our interests to keep trade with the EU as frictionless as possible. In Ireland, we are fully committed to the Good Friday Agreement, and any Brexit must not endanger the hard won peace in Northern Ireland by forcing a hard border on the island of Ireland. I am also mindful of the fact that 48% of the electorate voted to remain. While Remain lost the vote, we should not ignore the fact that 48% voted to retain EU citizenship and the rights associated with it today. With these factors in mind, I will be instructing our negotiators to work for the best possible relations with the EU after we leave, and to explore all options in negotiations including EEA membership, Single Market participation, a Customs Union as well as looser associations like a Free trade Agreement."
blanch152 wrote: » It is impossible to judge May until a deal is or isn't done. She has kept all of the balls in the air until now, without there being a collapse of the talks, a rift in her party, losing a parliamentary majority or precipitating a general election. All being said, that is some achievement. Some on this thread have said a strong leader should have done this or that. Strong leaders create divisions. If a strong leader had taken strong decisions, they wouldn't be leader now. May has managed to get the UK to the endgame, others would not have been able to do that.For all that, her ultimate success or failure depends on whether she can deliver a deal that holds the UK together and ensures it can continue to exist and grow without suffering political convulsions. A near-impossible task, but one she actually is quite close to pulling off. She has looked weak, she has looked indecisive, she has flown kites, but all the time they have inched forward. If she falls short, and a hard Brexit remains a real possibility, the argument that they should have had a political convulsion before now wins out. However, any deal that results in an orderly Brexit, with limited damage to the UK or the EU, is a vindication of May.
blanch152 wrote: » It is impossible to judge May until a deal is or isn't done. She has kept all of the balls in the air until now, without there being a collapse of the talks, a rift in her party, losing a parliamentary majority or precipitating a general election. All being said, that is some achievement. Some on this thread have said a strong leader should have done this or that. Strong leaders create divisions. If a strong leader had taken strong decisions, they wouldn't be leader now. May has managed to get the UK to the endgame, others would not have been able to do that. For all that, her ultimate success or failure depends on whether she can deliver a deal that holds the UK together and ensures it can continue to exist and grow without suffering political convulsions. A near-impossible task, but one she actually is quite close to pulling off. She has looked weak, she has looked indecisive, she has flown kites, but all the time they have inched forward. If she falls short, and a hard Brexit remains a real possibility, the argument that they should have had a political convulsion before now wins out. However, any deal that results in an orderly Brexit, with limited damage to the UK or the EU, is a vindication of May.
Leroy42 wrote: » A strong leader does not create divisions, a strong leader deals with divisions that are already there and gets a consensus to move forward.
