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Brexit Discussion Thread VI

johnnyskeleton

Hi folks, as Theresa May has won the vote of no confidence and we are heading into Brexit day early next year, I thought for the new thread people might give their summary of their views on Brexit to date before we get into the more day to day discussions.

So what do you think about what has happened so far? Who has come off well, who has come off badly?

Where do you think Brexit is going? What is going to be the likely impact on Ireland, Northern Ireland, the rest of the U.K. and the E.U. respectively?

Both this thread and the Mark V thread will remain open simultaneously for the next day or so and Mark V will be closed as it gets closer to the server busting 10,000 mark. Hopefully we can set down a solid foundation now for a top quality thread to come!

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dublinman1990 wrote: »

In all honesty; when it's described that a "No Brexit" will be "democratically catastrophic" for the UK if the HoC votes against the deal again this week; How could it framed be that way if things do stay as intended while the UK remains as part of the EU?

The EU in this case acts as a greater form of security to help out a member if they wanted things to remain stable for a member state i.e. the UK. When I say it's a greater form of security; I would describe it as being in a club that gives you much needed increases for improving your own reputation & increased prosperity towards a country over a longer or significant period of time. To simply throw that reputation & prosperity away by saying things like "No Deal" after negotiating a vote from the British public could give plenty of impressions to people that leaving the EU without a deal will be democratically catastrophic for the UK. This is because the amount of risks involved that are attached to a no deal brexit are too high to be realistic for TM's government to fall back if it was a safety net. TM has to learn that there is no safety net attached when leaving a big club like the EU. If TM fails the vote in the HoC & backs off with a no deal Brexit; that decision will rest on her shoulders for the rest of her political career. She has plenty to lose in her own reputation as British PM as she could resign from Government very swiftly if her party's ambition to leave the EU was defined a big economic & social failure in the not too distant future.

If a "No Brexit" was the final outcome of this rotten political period for the UK. I would make some suggestions here of what could happen if No Brexit was final.

And if I could begin with being realistic here; If Brexit does not happen at all for the Tories when they are currently in government could also be described as a political disaster because they have a lot of political power to lose if No Brexit was their final choice in deciding to leave the EU or not. Their own premise of staying on as the ruling party in the HoC was built up on the task of implementing Brexit from an agreed referendum decision of Leave from the British people. This had first happened during their time in government when DC as PM introduced the referendum to them before the result officially came up as Leave a few years ago.

I don't know how the British public could actually tolerate that position of the Tories of being more authoritarian in government then they will ever become in their lifetime if they ever fully implemented with a no deal scenario. I think that ambition from the British public to could be too much to justify for a realistic political reality to make their country better than staying in the EU.

There are other political implications for the DUP as well if they stuck in a government that decides that they would not want to do Brexit at all. The DUP in this case will rally the call of members in their own party to say to the Tories that they will leave the British government if their agenda of going ahead with Brexit was not happening under any circumstance. I would say this because the DUP are not so forgiving when a big policy does go to their intended fruition. They will not like it one bit. Their own time of ruling in the British government will become much shorter than expected if Brexit was not going to happen at all for all of the people living in the UK.

The other big probable negatives here would be that the global stock markets around the world may or may not like the tactics of TM's decision when "No Brexit" is decided upon. The stock markets had given a big shock of having losses across the major markets when the UK voted to leave the EU. I have no idea how a "No Brexit" will sound to them if they hear that the UK will stay in the EU after all. Also; a lot of the British people who had voted with the original intentions to leave the EU when they had their cast their votes in the referendum will probably have a big salty taste in their mouth to increase the likelihood of having a GE vote to eventually get the Tories out of government in the HoC. On the other hand; this may not count towards every person who voted on that day of the referendum. Some of these voters may feel that their voting decision that day was given on the back of a false premise in that the ideological outcome of Brexit maybe not so true after all.

If those things happen within a week if "No Brexit" is decided upon in the UK. They could be saying hello to JC as British PM in future.

So my summary on a choice of "No deal" Brexit is Tories out. DUP out. Hello Labour. If "No Brexit" happens. The same outcome will apply.

I must ask, did you write this as an exercise to mirror the 'saying a lot but not saying anything' which has been the dominant element of the UK Gov position on Brexit.

FreudianSlippers

Deleted User wrote: »

Aye, that sly EU outmanoeuvring the UK at every turn with their static position.

The UK is like a drunk guy trying to win a boxing match with a brick wall.

A Dub in Glasgo

I would be getting very worried if I was a British national living in EU land if there is no deal

https://twitter.com/AlexTaylorNews/status/1084564013286150144

Enzokk

Theresa May is getting desperate. She is trying everything to get MPs to back her deal so she can stay in charge a little longer because she has already said she will not contest the next election for the Tories and if her deal fails it makes a general election much more likely which will mean she is out.

So she is trying to frighten the ERG into voting for her deal in that at least it is Brexit even if it is a terrible one (BBC link earlier in the thread). At the same time she is trying to force MPs to vote for it by showing them that in previous referendums where the results were closer everyone respected the vote.

https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1084578642863243264

Unfortunately for her it seems that she is lying once again if says this later. It seems that the Conservatives and Theresa herself voted against implementing the result and voted against the Welsh Assembly after the referendum

https://twitter.com/joe_oliver/status/1084599583555178496

So even if she doesn't go ahead and say that in previous referendums that the result is always respected, her own voted show that there is no obligation for any MP to vote on the advice of the result.

Here is a thread you can follow that has more details on the hypocrisy of May.

https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/1084607886095982592

Donald Trump

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

You can believe what you want. They are terrified of the effects of having one of the largest economies in the world on their doorstep but not under their control when they know that it can enact policies which will hurt them unless they abandon their protectionism.

I'm still trying to figure out which side you are referring to. You previous posts would lead one to believe that you are implying that the EU would be afraid that the UK can enact policies to hurt it......

While, of course, UK can have policies which will negatively effect trade between the two, any impact on itself will be magnitudes higher.

intellectual dosser

Enzokk wrote: »

Theresa May is getting desperate. She is trying everything to get MPs to back her deal so she can stay in charge a little longer because she has already said she will not contest the next election for the Tories and if her deal fails it makes a general election much more likely which will mean she is out.

If I recall correctly she technically said she wouldn't contest the next election but insinuated that was if this government went the full term, not a snap election. Then again if there's an election over the coming weeks its hard to see the Tories let her lead them into it....they'd figure a way to oust her.

Donald Trump

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

I would be getting very worried if I was a British national living in EU land if there is no deal

https://twitter.com/AlexTaylorNews/status/1084564013286150144

Possible implications for Ireland too unless things are tightened up.

If the CTA remains and we have agreement for some kind of reciprocity for benefits etc, then I'd imagine that we'd be open to all those expat refugees coming to Ireland to "steal benefits". Given that living on the continent would probably satisfy residency conditions due to EU.

My guess is that the UK would simply have to enact legislation that living in the EU during the time preceding Brexit would count as residency. They just haven't thought about that. Given that they haven't bothered to figure out the massive big items, you'd hardly have expected them to be on top of it either now would you

Hurrache

Enzokk wrote: »

https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/1084607886095982592

That Steve Peers thread is amazing given the current political context.

prawnsambo

Esther McVey is currently trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons. She said on live television that there would be a tranistion period after a no-deal brexit.

Parts of me would like to believe that she's being disingenuous because the alternative is bonkers.

jmayo

WomanSkirtFan8 wrote: »

agreed. we are and always have been and probably always will be. We've a much better and more informed view of the world thanks to our open-mindedness and curiosity and also good humoured nature. :cool:

Ah before you get to much into backslapping yourself we also can do some stupid things.

And I think a lot of it is down to our history and the fact we had to go out into the world, not that we were overly open minded or good humoured.

Even in the most backward sleepy places in West of Ireland you will find family links to the outer reaches of the world.
As a kid in 70s, every family had relatives all over the US, Northern England, London and often in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Laterally the places have been Canada, Australia, New Zealand and all over Europe.
That meant there has always been some interest in those places, and then add in the returning emigrants and the summer visitors in the latter half of the 20th century.
As a 6 year old kid I had already heard of and knew people living in Texas, San Diego, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Australia, and all over UK.

And these places were the same to me as Dublin, far far away.

And this was 20 years before the internet.

We have never been insular like the UK or more especially the US.
We have always had to be outward looking.

A big part of the British problem is a fair whack of them, both at the top of society and the bottom, were bred on Britannia rules and images of plucky Englishmen (often in reality actual Irish or Scots) giving it to Johnny Foreigner.

And as someone said earlier, their media has spent 40 years telling them Europe is bad and to be ridiculed. :rolleyes:
Hell Yes Minister, based on real life civil service detail, showed that the same attitude probably existed at official levels.

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

The Scottish Whisky industry will be fúcked but hey ho the English are not too bothered about that

Actually this is a great chance for us to get back on top over the Scots.
The Scottish industry is worth a few billion whereas our whiskey is only in the hundreds of millions.

BTW did anyone hear Morning Ireland this morning where they mentioned having to develop facilities in Rosslare the size of Croke Park to deal with hard Brexit.

They plan to start in few days or maybe weeks.
Yep, they are going to start doing something a few months before D day.

And this is in the country famous for delivering infrastructure projects on time, to scale, within budget and to meet future requirements. :rolleyes:

Oh and they plan on hiring hundreds of staff but it's alright they had 3,000 applicants.
Sure they can interview them and then train them in a few days.

We shouldn't laugh too hard at the Brits.

Hurrache

prawnsambo wrote: »

Esther McVey is currently trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons. She said on live television that there would be a tranistion period after a no-deal brexit.

She also said that they should withhold the divorce bill.

Water John

See the headline that Liam Fox says No Deal Brexit is survivable. Why the hell would you allow your country to fall for something that puts it at serious risk?

[Deleted User]

Water John wrote: »

See the headline that Liam Fox says No Deal Brexit is survivable. Why the hell would you allow your country to fall for something that puts it at serious risk?

Because the public voted for it. If the country voted for no taxes, you should do that as well. The key is to not ask them such stupid questions.

I'm still confident of my wager of no Brexit. I think Parliament will revoke article 50.

prawnsambo

Water John wrote: »

See the headline that Liam Fox says No Deal Brexit is survivable. Why the hell would you allow your country to fall for something that puts it at serious risk?

He also said, very tellingly: "I think no Brexit, politically, is a disaster from which we might not recover."

So there you go. It's official. The Tory party survival is more important than the country's.

prawnsambo

jmayo wrote: »

Even in the most backward sleepy places in West of Ireland you will find family links to the outer reaches of the world.
As a kid in 70s, every family had relatives all over the US, Northern England, London and often in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Laterally the places have been Canada, Australia, New Zealand and all over Europe.
That meant there has always been some interest in those places, and then add in the returning emigrants and the summer visitors in the latter half of the 20th century.
As a 6 year old kid I had already heard of and knew people living in Texas, San Diego, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Australia, and all over UK.

There was also the constant of the IDA trying to attract foreign direct investment and jobs over many, many decades which would have been high in our consciousness.

jmayo wrote: »

They plan to start in few days or maybe weeks.
Yep, they are going to start doing something a few months before D day.

And this is in the country famous for delivering infrastructure projects on time, to scale, within budget and to meet future requirements. :rolleyes:

To be fair, many of our infrastructure projects have completed inside the time and under budget. Some of the motorway projects like parts of the M11/N11 would have been completed under budget and early.

Donald Trump

jmayo wrote: »

BTW did anyone hear Morning Ireland this morning where they mentioned having to develop facilities in Rosslare the size of Croke Park to deal with hard Brexit.

They plan to start in few days or maybe weeks.
Yep, they are going to start doing something a few months before D day.

And this is in the country famous for delivering infrastructure projects on time, to scale, within budget and to meet future requirements. :rolleyes:

Oh and they plan on hiring hundreds of staff but it's alright they had 3,000 applicants.
Sure they can interview them and then train them in a few days.

We shouldn't laugh too hard at the Brits.

To be fair, if Ireland invested massively in such projects say a year ago, and the cliff edge hadn't come, we might have been a long time getting that investment back.

Brexit is a British decision and it is British intransigence that is causing their difficulties. Even if they had built "unnecessary" infrastructure, they could have argued it would have been worth it to strengthen their hand in negotiations with the evil EU. Or whatever line they want to play out.

Additionally, if they built capacity at ports etc. (such as these ones with the companies who have no boats but have contracts) they could realistically use that capacity. The harbours that are currently being dredged to allow their use were previously used for that purpose.
You could try to make the same argument too for Ireland, but given a choice between transport to Dover and then overland to Holyhead and ferry to Dublin vs. straight ferry from France, transport costs are cheaper going through UK.

Sam Russell

jmayo wrote: »

They plan to start in few days or maybe weeks.
Yep, they are going to start doing something a few months before D day.

And this is in the country famous for delivering infrastructure projects on time, to scale, within budget and to meet future requirements. :rolleyes:

Oh and they plan on hiring hundreds of staff but it's alright they had 3,000 applicants.
Sure they can interview them and then train them in a few days.

We shouldn't laugh too hard at the Brits.

If you look back, when foot and mouth decided to rear its ugly head, the Dept of Agriculture did a very good job from a standing start.

When needs must, the Gov do act quickly and decisively.

Also, I would not be surprised to learn (after the fact) that there are secret deals with the UK if there is a No Deal Brexit. Those secret deals may be EU/UK or Ire/UK.

murphaph

Donald Trump wrote: »

Possible implications for Ireland too unless things are tightened up.

If the CTA remains and we have agreement for some kind of reciprocity for benefits etc, then I'd imagine that we'd be open to all those expat refugees coming to Ireland to "steal benefits". Given that living on the continent would probably satisfy residency conditions due to EU.

No implications for Ireland wrt benefits tourism of fleeing British expats. I'm Irish and I wouldn't even be entitled to benefits in Ireland if I rocked up there tomorrow, having lived in Germany the last 10 years. The Irish habitual residence test is even harder than the UK one I believe.

Bit cynical

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

You didn't, you also failed to explain this ---> 'Gina Miller has made this more difficult'

Well, I don't know how much you have been following the background to the current vote, but very basically back in late 2016 Gina Miller obtained a ruling that the UK Government did not have the right to issue Article 50 notification without approval of the UK Parliament.

The result of this was the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act of 2017 which also required that the UK Parliament would have a final vote on the deal. This is the vote which is happening next week.

The problem for Ireland is that although the deal is better than anything we could have expected, it looks like it may now not pass UK parliamentary scrutiny.

Hurrache

All very cloak and daggers
https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1084772049900449792?s=19

And here's the letter
https://twitter.com/JunckerEU/status/1084767077892804608?s=19

FreudianSlippers

That's... cryptic to say the least. I guess what he means is, they got our official letter and we aren't further clarifying the issue?

First Up

Sam Russell wrote:

Also, I would not be surprised to learn (after the fact) that there are secret deals with the UK if there is a No Deal Brexit. Those secret deals may be EU/UK or Ire/UK.

What sort of things do you think these secret deals will cover?

And will they be secret enough to enable Ireland strike bilateral deals with the UK without the rest of the EU noticing?

Harry Palmr

Water John wrote: »

See the headline that Liam Fox says No Deal Brexit is survivable. Why the hell would you allow your country to fall for something that puts it at serious risk?

"Not as bad as Dunkirk" is not much of an endorsement for a no deal exit.

https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1084722700097122304

Donald Trump

murphaph wrote: »

No implications for Ireland wrt benefits tourism of fleeing British expats. I'm Irish and I wouldn't even be entitled to benefits in Ireland if I rocked up there tomorrow, having lived in Germany the last 10 years. The Irish habitual residence test is even harder than the UK one I believe.

Well for you, that's not necessarily true

https://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/Habitual-Residence-Condition_holder.aspx

Returning Irish emigrants

EU rules prevent discrimination on nationality grounds in relation to social security, so it is not possible to exempt a particular category of Irish citizens (such as returning Irish emigrants) from the habitual residence condition (either in general or for Carer’s Allowance) without extending the same treatment to all EU nationals. However, the guidelines on determination of habitual residence address the issue of returning emigrants very specifically. The guidelines state: “A person who had previously been habitually resident in the State and who moved to live and work in another country and then resumes his/her long-term residence in the State may be regarded as being habitually resident immediately on his/her return to the State.”

I'm not saying UK benefit "tourists" would be a problem. Was just an aside to say that you yourself could be immediately habitually resident

robinph

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

That's... cryptic to say the least. I guess what he means is, they got our official letter and we aren't further clarifying the issue?

There is only so many ways that you can say you've got your final deal and there must never be a hard border in Ireland.

Dyr

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

That's... cryptic to say the least. I guess what he means is, they got our official letter and we aren't further clarifying the issue?

i
I think it's Junkers way of saying they're not going to keep rewording the same statement over and over just because Theresa thinks it will change the meaning somehow so stop playing silly buggers

Sam Russell

First Up wrote: »

What sort of things do you think these secret deals will cover?

And will they be secret enough to enable Ireland strike bilateral deals with the UK without the rest of the EU noticing?

Well, there is the CTA for a start as the kind of deal we have - could that be tweaked to make the NI border easier?

Could the current checks on the Irish Sea be tweaked to make the NI border easier? Currently set at 10% checks but go to 100% checks.

Could the EU make some of their micro-deals depend on flexibility on the NI border?

That kind of thing. Not necessarily official, but actual.

Bit cynical

First Up wrote: »

Why so?

Essentially because it is so close to the vote in the UK Parliament which we want to pass.

Willingness to extend A50 if the vote fails is a good thing from Ireland's point of view, but the timing of the announcement is unfortunate.

FreudianSlippers

robinph wrote: »

There is only so many ways that you can say you've got your final deal and there must never be a hard border in Ireland.

Bambi wrote: »

i
I think it's Junkers way of saying they're not going to keep rewording the same statement over and over just because Theresa thinks it will change the meaning somehow so stop playing silly buggers

It was only the Connolly tweet up when I responded. I think the letter is more than clear.

seamus

Harry Palmr wrote: »

"Not as bad as Dunkirk" is not much of an endorsement for a no deal exit.

https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1084722700097122304

"Now, I know it's not ideal, but this car is only doing about 20mph. So we're going to jump from it, but it's OK. This is survivable."

"This seems fairly stupid. Can't we just stop the car first?"

"....

Don't bottle this on me, we both agreed to this"