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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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downcow

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Eh, no, the only constituency that voted against abortion was Donegal, which is in Ulster, not Connacht.

Ok so the point is the same.

Peregrinus

downcow wrote: »

I can’t respond to all of above as I’m just typing on my phone. But let me take a few briefly.
I understand why you are concerned that border is being used by brexiteers i genuinely believe it is not. But do you understand that I believe very many remainers are abusing the gfa to suit their needs and threatening violence. There will be no significant violence no matter what the outcome. It’s over. Well at least for another generation I can’t predict beyond that.
So stop trying to use fear against a community who suffered 30 years of violence - I actually never hear this argument up here because people know the reality

It’s already the case, downcow, that more than half of the terrorist incidents recorded ever year in the whole of Europe happen in NI. I would very much hope that we will never see a return to what we saw in the 70s, 80s and 90s. But I wouldn’t share your confidence that we won’t suffer more violence. This is not something we can ever be complacent about

To be honest, I agree with you that the discourse in GB about this is excessively focussed on the possibility of return to violence. Perhaps that’s all they can understand about Ireland, or all they really care about but, either way, that’s a very unbalanced discourse. Yes, the possibility of a return to violence is an issue, but there’s much more than that at stake here - the civic and social health of NI, the strength or weakness of the Union, the capacity of NI to function effectively as a democratic community. They don’t really engage with these things in GB (and perhaps the focus on violence doesn’t help with this) but that’s part of the problem.

downcow wrote: »

You talk of anger against gb. The thing we are angry about is that many of us took a big step and voted for gfa for peace and now we see roi supported by Europe using it for their own agenda

Seriously, this is completely unbalanced. What you term the “agenda” of RoI is simply to continue the current state of affairs - the GFA, the peace settlement, the open border. It’s Brexiters who are insisting on changing things, remember; RoI is trying to preserve as much of the GFA settlement as it can.

downcow wrote: »

Do you realise you are asking NI residents to allow a settlement that could place us in a position for all time where EU make our rules but we have no MEPs and no democratic way to influence those rules. It’s hard to find that outside of a few countries like n Korea Would you accept signing up to such for your country?

We’re not asking you to do that; Brexiters are. We’d be quite happy with the continuation of the current state of affairs. Or with e.g. a Danish-model Brexit in which parts of the UK (e.g. England and Wales) leave the EU and other parts (NI, Scotland) remain in, with EP votes, MEPs, etc. Or with other solutions which don’t have the defect that you point to here. It’s the Westminster government, under the influence of Tory Brexiters, who have ruled out such solutions from the very beginning. (And you can be sure that what drives them to do that is not a warm concern for the interests and health of NI.)

downcow wrote: »

Everyone just needs to wise up and trust each other. Dump the backstop and work out an arrangement that works for both UK and Eu with special attention to the needs of roi and NI

The backstop is at attempt to work out an arrangement that works for both the UK and the EU. It has the rather tortured shape it has because it attempts to square the circle of May’s conflicting red lines, but that just reflects the fact that it’s a serious good-faith attempt to respect the UK’s position.

downcow wrote: »

But Eu blocked that discussion from day one as they want to make an example of UK so no one else tries to leave.

This, I’m afraid, is complete nonsense. You’ve been falling for Brexiter gaslighting propaganda. Far from “blocking discussion”, the EU has constantly been the driver of discussion, taking the initiative, bringing forward proposals, etc, while the UK government has been distinctly behind in doing so at every point of the process. And the EU has always made it clear that other alternatives to the backstop are possible if the UK can modify its red lines. All along, the EU has been more flexible on this than the UK.

downcow wrote: »

Maybe in a decade we roi also get out it will ease problems at the border.

It’s more likely, I think, that the UK will be coming back in. The Brexit process itself has been so astonishingly badly handled by the UK at every point along the way that it is hard to have much confidence in the conduct of the UK’s affairs post-Brexit. Even if a successful Brexit is possible, the quality of political leadership evident in the UK (on both sides of politics) makes it wildly unlikely that it can actually be delivered. I’m sorry to say it, but I don’t think this is going to go well for the UK.

Necro

downcow wrote:

I canâ€™t respond to all of above as Iâ€™m just typing on my phone. But let me take a few briefly. I understand why you are concerned that border is being used by brexiteers i genuinely believe it is not. But do you understand that I believe very many remainers are abusing the gfa to suit their needs and threatening violence. There will be no significant violence no matter what the outcome. Itâ€™s over. Well at least for another generation I canâ€™t predict beyond that. So stop trying to use fear against a community who suffered 30 years of violence - I actually never hear this argument up here because people know the reality

Derry last Saturday night would seem to disagree with your above statement.

And how dare Ireland and the EU use a binding International Peace Treaty as voted in favour for on the entire island, and try to uphold the values and protect the peace it brought. :rolleyes:

You've absolutely no idea what you are talking about, with respect.

Skelet0n

downcow wrote: »

Everyone just needs to wise up and trust each other.

The U.K. government has proven time after time that it can’t be trusted, making promises and reneging on them at every turn.

The EU is simply saying that nobody wants the backstop to be used, but since HMG are dysfunctional at the moment, it’s there just in case.

Zubeneschamali

downcow wrote: »

If you replicate your argument to roi then those living in Connaught could say their country voted against abortion.

Eh, no, the only constituency that voted against abortion was Donegal, which is in Ulster, not Connacht.

downcow

Enzokk wrote: »

Result - Remain 56% - Leave 44%. There is your political mandate on what is best for your country.

You really need to take a step back from this spin. My country voted out.
If you replicate your argument to roi then those living in Connaught could say their country voted against abortion.
My whole country UK voted. It was close and some regions voted remain and some voted exit. Are you struggling to understand that?

downcow

murphaph wrote: »

Nationalists by and large did not vote for this mess. The protestant, unionist people did. Brexit was close run. Those votes mattered immensely in getting Brexit over the line. Now you are crying over milk your people spilled themselves.

It’s really unhelpful and inaccurate to equate unionist with Protestant. But I suppose suits your narrative.
The evidence is that the prod majority had decreased over last 30 years but yet the support for staying in the UK has risen year on year. You are listening to too much shinner propaganda

downcow

Peregrinus wrote: »

OK. I get this. A few thoughts.

1. What NI actually wants is no hard(er) border either between NI and RoI or between NI and GB. That, obviously, would be the best outcome for NI, and I think Unionists and Nationalists would both feel that.

2. That, I suspect, is the reason, or a part of the reason, why NI voted to Remain.

3. I admit to harbouring the unworthy suspicion that there may be some in NI who voted to Leave because, contrary to what I say above, they actually do want a hard(er) border with RoI, or other concrete measures which in some way elevate or prioritise British identity/connections with GB over Irish identity/connections with RoI. I’m talking here, obviously, of people who dislike the GFA and the settlement constructed upon it. I could be wrong. I hope I am.

4. Even given the Leave outcome of the referendum, it was still possible to proceed with Brexit on terms that didn’t require either border to be hardened, but the choice was made not to do that.

5. Right. Leaving unionism and nationalism aside, and trying to be dispassionate, if NI is to be forced into a situation where it must choose between a hard(er) border with RoI and a hard(er) border with GB, which should it prefer? I’d argue that it should prioritise keeping open the border with Ireland because, for a variety of reasons, the harder border with GB, unwelcome as it is, does less damage to NI, to the GFA and to the peace settlement than the harder border with RoI. It’s the lesser of two evils. (I can expand on this if you want.)

6. All the signs are that public opinion in NI favours the backstop, which suggests that I’m not alone in that analysis.

7. Still, regardless of which choice is eventually made, I think people in NI - nationalist or unionist - are entitled to be angry that they are forced to put up with the lesser evil when they didn’t have to be faced with any evil at all. Even if NI were allowed to choose which evil they consider the lesser (and, NB, you probably won’t be) NI is still damaged by the process and the outcome. And, if I were a unionist, I’d be feeling very strongly that (a) this is not good for the Union, and (b) the people who have forced NI into this position are playing fast and loose with the Union.

8. There’s a couple of issues here:

(a) In the decision to hold a Brexit referendum, and in the framing and conduct of the referendum, no thought was given to the particular concerns of NI, or to the health of the Union. (And this is true of the Union with Scotland and well as the Union with NI.) Those who attempted to raise such concerns were ignored or marginalised.

(b) After the referendum, given the nature of the Leave campaign, HMG had a wide discretion as to the kind of Brexit it would seek to implement. They didn’t have to choose a form of Brexit that must damage NI and that must damage the Union; a Brexit that would force the choice of which border to harden - other models were available. But they chose it anyway. And they chose that not in the interests of the UK (obviously) or even in the interests of Great Britain or of England, but in the interests of trying to avoid a split in the Tory party.

(c) The lesson from all this is how little NI counts for in the deliberations and decisions of at least the present UK government. And, obviously, that’s a lesson that, once taken on board, must tend to damage the Union. It’s richly ironic that the Conservative and Unionist Party, in alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party, has done more to damage and weaken the Union in three years than the IRA managed in thirty, but that’s how it is. I’d expect unionists to be depressed, angry and resentful of that.

9. So, putting myself in the shoes of a unionist, as you suggest, how do I think a unionist should feel? Three thoughts:

- First, it may be a bit late now, but on the question of Brexit a unionist should either have adopted a remainer position or favoured a Brexit that did not put NI in the present invidious position. Or a unionist could have been a remainer in the referendum campaign and then pivoted to favouring such a Brexit in light of the result.

- Secondly, as already suggested, a unionist is entitled to feel angry at the disdain for NI, and for the health and well-being of the Union, shown by HMG and by the Leave movement.

- Thirdly, we are where we are. If a choice must be made, a unionist should favour keeping the RoI border open and accepting a hardening of the GB border because (a) this does less immediate damage and (b) the hardening of the GB border will be less permanent; it will be easier to remedy in years to come. And both of these are, on balance, better outcomes for the Union.

I can’t respond to all of above as I’m just typing on my phone. But let me take a few briefly.
I understand why you are concerned that border is being used by brexiteers i genuinely believe it is not. But do you understand that I believe very many remainers are abusing the gfa to suit their needs and threatening violence. There will be no significant violence no matter what the outcome. It’s over. Well at least for another generation I can’t predict beyond that.
So stop trying to use fear against a community who suffered 30 years of violence - I actually never hear this argument up here because people know the reality

You talk of anger against gb. The thing we are angry about is that many of us took a big step and voted for gfa for peace and now we see roi supported by Europe using it for their own agenda

Do you realise you are asking NI residents to allow a settlement that could place us in a position for all time where EU make our rules but we have no MEPs and no democratic way to influence those rules. It’s hard to find that outside of a few countries like n Korea Would you accept signing up to such for your country?

Everyone just needs to wise up and trust each other. Dump the backstop and work out an arrangement that works for both UK and Eu with special attention to the needs of roi and NI But Eu blocked that discussion from day one as they want to make an example of UK so no one else tries to leave.

Maybe in a decade we roi also get out it will ease problems at the border.

LeinsterDub

downcow wrote: »

I am a unionist (yes we are still the significant majority up here).

I feel you mean an ever decreasing majority. Which according to some polls won't exist post a hard brexit.

murphaph

downcow wrote: »

I accept some of what you say. Unfortunately you scold me for how I frame my question and then evidence this by spinning what I said to mean ‘hard border’ - I never use this term because no one will tell me what constitutes hard and soft borders. Anyhow enough on my frustrations with you misrepresenting what I asked.
Can you not see my serious point I am a unionist (yes we are still the significant majority up here). I absolutely want to accommodate my nationalist friends and neighbours. But so many on here only care about how the Irish in the north feel with no concern whatsoever us brits feel. I could use your emotional paragraph above fairly much word for word to describe the downsides to my community of tieing us into an arrangement that detaches us from the rest of our country ie Uk.
Let me say this with genuine respect ‘try to put yourself in my shoes’. I am trying to put myself in you thinking but it is not easy.

Nationalists by and large did not vote for this mess. The protestant, unionist people did. Brexit was close run. Those votes mattered immensely in getting Brexit over the line. Now you are crying over milk your people spilled themselves.

Enzokk

downcow wrote: »

Do many on here genuinely not understand or are they pretending to not get it. How is it ok to put checks right through the middle of a country (Irish Sea) but not ok to have any checks whatsoever at an international border (roi / NI)??

It is a calculated risk. If there is a border on the island then there will be violence. If there is a border in the Irish Sea there may be violence. I prefer to not have to worry in addition to what economic impact the UK will force on us on my personal safety. The world is off tilt already without having to worry about that.

downcow wrote: »

I accept some of what you say. Unfortunately you scold me for how I frame my question and then evidence this by spinning what I said to mean ‘hard border’ - I never use this term because no one will tell me what constitutes hard and soft borders. Anyhow enough on my frustrations with you misrepresenting what I asked.
Can you not see my serious point I am a unionist (yes we are still the significant majority up here). I absolutely want to accommodate my nationalist friends and neighbours. But so many on here only care about how the Irish in the north feel with no concern whatsoever us brits feel. I could use your emotional paragraph above fairly much word for word to describe the downsides to my community of tieing us into an arrangement that detaches us from the rest of our country ie Uk.
Let me say this with genuine respect ‘try to put yourself in my shoes’. I am trying to put myself in you thinking but it is not easy.

Result - Remain 56% - Leave 44%. There is your political mandate on what is best for your country. As for your voice and concern, please don't worry as the DUP has the government right where they want them. Nothing can realistically be done without their say and that is why we are where we are.

As for seeing it from your point of view, let me say that nationality is a feeling more than anything else. If you feel less British because you have to go through customs checks when you travel to the UK then that is up to you and you alone. I don't know whether the people in France feel less French due to the EU, or people in Germany feel less German because of rules being made in Brussels instead of Berlin. It shouldn't because where rules are made doesn't change who you are. If you feel British then you will always be British whether there is a border in the sea or on land.

Peregrinus

downcow wrote: »

I accept some of what you say. Unfortunately you scold me for how I frame my question and then evidence this by spinning what I said to mean ‘hard border’ - I never use this term because no one will tell me what constitutes hard and soft borders. Anyhow enough on my frustrations with you misrepresenting what I asked.
Can you not see my serious point I am a unionist (yes we are still the significant majority up here). I absolutely want to accommodate my nationalist friends and neighbours. But so many on here only care about how the Irish in the north feel with no concern whatsoever us brits feel. I could use your emotional paragraph above fairly much word for word to describe the downsides to my community of tieing us into an arrangement that detaches us from the rest of our country ie Uk.
Let me say this with genuine respect ‘try to put yourself in my shoes’. I am trying to put myself in you thinking but it is not easy.

OK. I get this. A few thoughts.

1. What NI actually wants is no hard(er) border either between NI and RoI or between NI and GB. That, obviously, would be the best outcome for NI, and I think Unionists and Nationalists would both feel that.

2. That, I suspect, is the reason, or a part of the reason, why NI voted to Remain.

3. I admit to harbouring the unworthy suspicion that there may be some in NI who voted to Leave because, contrary to what I say above, they actually do want a hard(er) border with RoI, or other concrete measures which in some way elevate or prioritise British identity/connections with GB over Irish identity/connections with RoI. I’m talking here, obviously, of people who dislike the GFA and the settlement constructed upon it. I could be wrong. I hope I am.

4. Even given the Leave outcome of the referendum, it was still possible to proceed with Brexit on terms that didn’t require either border to be hardened, but the choice was made not to do that.

5. Right. Leaving unionism and nationalism aside, and trying to be dispassionate, if NI is to be forced into a situation where it must choose between a hard(er) border with RoI and a hard(er) border with GB, which should it prefer? I’d argue that it should prioritise keeping open the border with Ireland because, for a variety of reasons, the harder border with GB, unwelcome as it is, does less damage to NI, to the GFA and to the peace settlement than the harder border with RoI. It’s the lesser of two evils. (I can expand on this if you want.)

6. All the signs are that public opinion in NI favours the backstop, which suggests that I’m not alone in that analysis.

7. Still, regardless of which choice is eventually made, I think people in NI - nationalist or unionist - are entitled to be angry that they are forced to put up with the lesser evil when they didn’t have to be faced with any evil at all. Even if NI were allowed to choose which evil they consider the lesser (and, NB, you probably won’t be) NI is still damaged by the process and the outcome. And, if I were a unionist, I’d be feeling very strongly that (a) this is not good for the Union, and (b) the people who have forced NI into this position are playing fast and loose with the Union.

8. There’s a couple of issues here:

(a) In the decision to hold a Brexit referendum, and in the framing and conduct of the referendum, no thought was given to the particular concerns of NI, or to the health of the Union. (And this is true of the Union with Scotland and well as the Union with NI.) Those who attempted to raise such concerns were ignored or marginalised.

(b) After the referendum, given the nature of the Leave campaign, HMG had a wide discretion as to the kind of Brexit it would seek to implement. They didn’t have to choose a form of Brexit that must damage NI and that must damage the Union; a Brexit that would force the choice of which border to harden - other models were available. But they chose it anyway. And they chose that not in the interests of the UK (obviously) or even in the interests of Great Britain or of England, but in the interests of trying to avoid a split in the Tory party.

(c) The lesson from all this is how little NI counts for in the deliberations and decisions of at least the present UK government. And, obviously, that’s a lesson that, once taken on board, must tend to damage the Union. It’s richly ironic that the Conservative and Unionist Party, in alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party, has done more to damage and weaken the Union in three years than the IRA managed in thirty, but that’s how it is. I’d expect unionists to be depressed, angry and resentful of that.

9. So, putting myself in the shoes of a unionist, as you suggest, how do I think a unionist should feel? Three thoughts:

- First, it may be a bit late now, but on the question of Brexit a unionist should either have adopted a remainer position or favoured a Brexit that did not put NI in the present invidious position. Or a unionist could have been a remainer in the referendum campaign and then pivoted to favouring such a Brexit in light of the result.

- Secondly, as already suggested, a unionist is entitled to feel angry at the disdain for NI, and for the health and well-being of the Union, shown by HMG and by the Leave movement.

- Thirdly, we are where we are. If a choice must be made, a unionist should favour keeping the RoI border open and accepting a hardening of the GB border because (a) this does less immediate damage and (b) the hardening of the GB border will be less permanent; it will be easier to remedy in years to come. And both of these are, on balance, better outcomes for the Union.

Zubeneschamali

briany wrote: »

at what point in the following year is the average UK citizen going to notice the UK's new relationship to the EU having a significant effect on their day to day lives?

Assuming that the UK Government decides to keep calm and carry on:

Within a month there will be empty shelves in Tesco and rationing at pharmacies and hospitals, troops protecting Government stockpiles.

Within two, there will be simple food rationing in shops (like one loaf per customer) and troops on the streets.

I'd say the riots will start in month three.

Zubeneschamali

Scoondal wrote: »

UK can exit A50 and a couple of days later trigger A50 again. They get another 2 years as a member of EU. It is possible.

Or better still, they could withdraw the A50 notice and then not trigger it again until they have an agreed plan. Which will never happen, so happy days.

downcow

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, if your question is "how is it OK not to have checks at an international border?", the answer is obvious; it's been that way for 25 years, and the sky hasn't fallen yet, so clearly it's OK.

If your question is "why is it abhorrent for remainers?", I think you have to start by explaining why you choose to phrase the question this way. "No hard border" is a stated objective of that well known remainer conspiracy, Her Majesty's Government. A "frictionless border" is even a manifesto commitment of the DUP (in their 2017 GE manifesto). Everybody sees problems with a hardening of the border. (Almost everybody; see below.) But the fact that you choose - or have been duped - into framing this as a "remainer" issue just underlines my point; outrage over measures to keep the border open has been manufactured, and is being hijacked, by those who seek to retrospectively shape Brexit as a hard brexit, rather than the Brexit offered to UK voters by the Leave campaigners; it is they who position those who care about a hard border as "remainers".

If you rephrase the question in less loaded terms as "why is it abhorrent to some people?", I think you must already know the answer. A hard border cuts away the ground the Good Friday Agreement stands on, impedes implementation of Strand II, frustrates the GFA objective of normalisation, hugely damages social and economic cohesion in border areas, inflicts economic harm, and fundamentally attacks the principle of parity of esteem. And that's before we consider any security implications.

English ultra-Brexiters, of course, are unbothered by any of this; injury to Ireland or the Irish is not something they factor into their decision-making process. But I am puzzled why anybody in Ireland would drink the Brexiter kool-aid to the extent of not seeing any of this, or not caring about it.

I accept some of what you say. Unfortunately you scold me for how I frame my question and then evidence this by spinning what I said to mean ‘hard border’ - I never use this term because no one will tell me what constitutes hard and soft borders. Anyhow enough on my frustrations with you misrepresenting what I asked.
Can you not see my serious point I am a unionist (yes we are still the significant majority up here). I absolutely want to accommodate my nationalist friends and neighbours. But so many on here only care about how the Irish in the north feel with no concern whatsoever us brits feel. I could use your emotional paragraph above fairly much word for word to describe the downsides to my community of tieing us into an arrangement that detaches us from the rest of our country ie Uk.
Let me say this with genuine respect ‘try to put yourself in my shoes’. I am trying to put myself in you thinking but it is not easy.

Peregrinus

Well, if your question is "how is it OK not to have checks at an international border?", the answer is obvious; it's been that way for 25 years, and the sky hasn't fallen yet, so clearly it's OK.

If your question is "why is it abhorrent for remainers?", I think you have to start by explaining why you choose to phrase the question this way. "No hard border" is a stated objective of that well known remainer conspiracy, Her Majesty's Government. A "frictionless border" is even a manifesto commitment of the DUP (in their 2017 GE manifesto). Everybody sees problems with a hardening of the border. (Almost everybody; see below.) But the fact that you choose - or have been duped - into framing this as a "remainer" issue just underlines my point; outrage over measures to keep the border open has been manufactured, and is being hijacked, by those who seek to retrospectively shape Brexit as a hard brexit, rather than the Brexit offered to UK voters by the Leave campaigners; it is they who position those who care about a hard border as "remainers".

If you rephrase the question in less loaded terms as "why is it abhorrent to so many people?", I think you must already know the answer. A hard border cuts away the ground the Good Friday Agreement stands on, impedes implementation of Strand II, frustrates the GFA objective of normalisation, hugely damages social and economic cohesion in border areas, inflicts economic harm, and fundamentally attacks the principle of parity of esteem. And that's before we consider any security implications.

English ultra-Brexiters, of course, are unbothered by any of this; injury to Ireland or the Irish is not something they factor into their decision-making process. But I am puzzled why anybody in Ireland would drink the Brexiter kool-aid to the extent of not seeing any of this, or seeing it but not caring about it.

downcow

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You have never given even the slightest indication that you have learnt something from posting here, or have changed your mind on something.

Perigrinus, don't waste your time. He is only here to do just that and turn another 20 pages into drivel.

This post demonstrates exactly my point. Some on here have zero self awareness, sadly

[Deleted User]

downcow wrote: »

Are you purposely not answering the question I was asking. And of course I know there are differences in UK regions and biosecurity checks etc at Irish Sea. My point is why this is ok for remainers but it is abhorrent to have any checks at international border?
And how can you not know that there are currently checks at the roi/ NI border?

You have never given even the slightest indication that you have learnt something from posting here, or have changed your mind on something.

Perigrinus, don't waste your time. He is only here to do just that and turn another 20 pages into drivel.

downcow

Peregrinus wrote: »

There are checks in the Irish Sea right now. And there have been heavier checks in the past. How can you possibly not know this? The notion that such checks are some kind of constitutional outrage was only invented because it was politically convenient for the ultra-Brexiters.

Are you purposely not answering the question I was asking. And of course I know there are differences in UK regions and biosecurity checks etc at Irish Sea. My point is why this is ok for remainers but it is abhorrent to have any checks at international border?
And how can you not know that there are currently checks at the roi/ NI border?

Peregrinus

downcow wrote: »

Do many on here genuinely not understand or are they pretending to not get it. How is it ok to put checks right through the middle of a country (Irish Sea) but not ok to have any checks whatsoever at an international border (roi / NI)??

There are checks in the Irish Sea right now. And there have been heavier checks in the past. How can you possibly not know this? The notion that such checks are some kind of constitutional outrage was only invented because it was politically convenient for the ultra-Brexiters.

downcow

Do many on here genuinely not understand or are they pretending to not get it. How is it ok to put checks right through the middle of a country (Irish Sea) but not ok to have any checks whatsoever at an international border (roi / NI)??

Peregrinus

kowtow wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing (although there do seem to be a lot of different stories coming out of Dover / Calais)... we were only talking about the limited case of shipping household possessions cross border in EU (or ex-EU)

Plenty of chaos elsewhere - for a time at least - if no deal is the outcome, although I have a sneaky feeling it won't be. If I had to bet money it would still be on May's deal (more or less) but with some sort of movement on the backstop.

I don't think there's scope for more than token movement on the backstop. I mean, like, really obviously token movement.

There's more scope for movement on the Political Declaration, and this could be movement aimed not so much at altering the backstop (which the PD can't do; the WA prevails over the PD) as maximising the chances that the backstop will not come into operation.

Couple of thoughts:

1. At no point in her statement to the Commons does May talk about reopening the Withdrawal Agreement. Suggests she knows that this is a non-runner.

2. Most of the movement to make any change to the PD has to be on the UK side, since it's the UK red lines (leaving customs union; no single market; no ECJ jurisdiction) that are the problem here. May needs to be prepared not to drop these red lines, but to create (more) exceptions to them where this is necessary to prevent the backstop kicking in.

3. Interesting that May has specifically mentioned that she will talk to the DUP, and she has framed the issue as "how we might meet our obligations to the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland". Suggests that she intends to frame this as an Irish issue, and by doing to prioritise views of the DUP over those of the ERG.

4. Bottom line for the DUP is that they don’t want NI treated any differently from rest of the UK. They’d prefer hard Brexit to soft Brexit, but this is a second-order issue for them, so long as Brexit is uniform across the UK. So, logically, they should support softening of red lines across the whole UK to the extent necessary to prevent the backstop taking effect. But note that this reasoning does not apply to ERG, whose priorities are reversed; hard Brexit is most important to them.

5. The WA was, of course, voted down by a majority of 230 votes, only 10 of which came from the DUP, so focussing on the DUP looks, on the face of it, not sufficient to change matters. But May's hope is, reportedly, that if she can swing the DUP round to supporting her deal, the bulk of the Tory party ultra-Brexiters can be got to follow.

6. My own view, FWIW, is that this strategy (if it is her strategy) will not succeed. If May prioritises DUP over ERG and persuades DUP towards softer Brexit, ERG will not come in on the DUP coattails. More likely she will simply drive a wedge between DUP and ERG, but that won’t get her where she wants to be.

7. So important question becomes, what is May’s Plan C? If she secures the assent of the DUP but not of the ERG, the deal will be voted down again, and at that point May has to decide whether she will hew towards crash-out Brexit, or opt for revoking Art 50 or trying for a second referendum. From here point of view these are all appalling options; but she will just has to choose which is the least appalling.

Peregrinus

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Or both sides could try to find a compromise, avoiding digging their heels in jnless its absolutely necessary. If the UK behaves appallingly, its no reason for the EU to respond in kind when theh can take the high road.

Both sides have tried to find a compromise. That compromise is the backstop set out in the Withdrawal Agreement.

And the EU has always made it clear that other compromises are possible, but this one has emerged from an attempt to respect the UK's red lines. If the UK wants another and, from its point of view, better compromise, the necessary first step is for the UK to shift its red lines. This isn't something within the EU's gift.

Infini

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Or both sides could try to find a compromise, avoiding digging their heels in jnless its absolutely necessary. If the UK behaves appallingly, its no reason for the EU to respond in kind when theh can take the high road.

There's the problem though the conservatives are full of fools who refused to grasp this. They want everything their way or the highway that's how they've ended up in the trap of their own making.

A hard brexit wont sink us but the collateral damage to other area's would make plenty here have little time for the UK until they came to their senses.

johnnyskeleton

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

IMHO we need to make it very clear that if they try to throw us off a cliff, we're taking them with us. Fight blackmail with blackmail.

If they want a Hard Brexit, they'll get one, courtesy of our veto.

If they want a good trade deal with the EU, there had better be something worth while for us in it and it won't be cheap.

But it won't come to that because they can't be that stupid ?

Or both sides could try to find a compromise, avoiding digging their heels in jnless its absolutely necessary. If the UK behaves appallingly, its no reason for the EU to respond in kind when theh can take the high road.

johnnyskeleton

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Care to explain why in your book it's ok to separate Ireland from world by putting a border on Irish Sea and pulling us out of EU
But it is not ok for NI which does a fraction of our trade to have a border in Irish Sea and still remain in UK
?

For the last time I never said that Ireland would leave the EU. If you dont understand that the location of customs checks is not automatically where the territorial border is, then I cant help you.7 To answer the second part, if you want to know why its not ok for Northern Ireland, look up the Troubles and you will soon see why no one wants to return to that, except those who advocate a no deal brexit and a border on the island of Ireland

branie2

On omen perhaps?

Capt'n Midnight

briany wrote: »

Let's assume for a minute that it will definitely a crash out - the sky over the UK will not turn blood red at 11.00pm on March 29th, but at what point in the following year is the average UK citizen going to notice the UK's new relationship to the EU having a significant effect on their day to day lives?

Technically speaking the sky was blood red last night

Hard to know , a lot depends on how much the EU accommodates them for the benefit of EU citizens.

The financial impact of the Sterling falling to close to the Euro would be the big one. Austerity would continue. If you are rich you'll pay for "taking back control". If you are just getting by, things just aren't getting better for the foreseeable future.

Capt'n Midnight

smurgen wrote: »

I'm nearly fully confident it's a crash out at this stage

IMHO we need to make it very clear that if they try to throw us off a cliff, we're taking them with us. Fight blackmail with blackmail.

If they want a Hard Brexit, they'll get one, courtesy of our veto.

If they want a good trade deal with the EU, there had better be something worth while for us in it and it won't be cheap.

But it won't come to that because they can't be that stupid ?

briany

Let's assume for a minute that it will definitely a crash out - the sky over the UK will not turn blood red at 11.00pm on March 29th, but at what point in the following year is the average UK citizen going to notice the UK's new relationship to the EU having a significant effect on their day to day lives?