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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

FrancieBrady wrote: »

The backstop does not affect the constitutional position of northern Ireland. That is not me saying that, that is YOUR OWN attorney general.

So how does a few checks at Newry affect the constitutional position on NI.

Donald Trump

downcow wrote: »

Why argue against the obvious just because it doesn’t suit your agenda.
I’ll explain it slowly.
No changes to be made to sovereignty of NI without support of people in a referendum
A permanent backstop ensures NI rules are made by Eu which we will have zero power over and will diverge from UK.
You can look up what sovereignty means in the dictionary and you will find that is a change in sovereignty

I am not too wound up about it as I see anything other than an agreed exit will be contrary to the gfa. But agreement will come I believe. So we don’t need to worry about gfa

Speaking of sovereignty of NI, how's that oul' NI Assembly going? You know, that part of sovereignty where you make your own laws in your own parliament, not accept ones made in a parliament in another country (even though you might have representation there).

Tell me how

downcow wrote: »

I want to understand your position. So just tell me in what way you believe checks are any more offensive or difficult at Newry than larne. It’s a serious question I would love to have answer for.

Because at Newry the checking facilities would symbolise to some an unacceptable division of the island of Ireland represented and enforced with a physical structure.

downcow

Anthracite wrote: »

That only makes sense if there are *already* no checks crossing the Irish sea. Does nobody check your boat or plane ticket when you cross? It makes more sense to check stuff on boats if you have to stop anyway. Nobody is making unbroken trips across the Irish sea in their own cars.

That is just nonsense to suit your agenda. Are you saying you would be happy with checks on the carlingford ferry?

prawnsambo

downcow wrote: »

Why argue against the obvious just because it doesn’t suit your agenda.
I’ll explain it slowly.
No changes to be made to sovereignty of NI without support of people in a referendum
A permanent backstop ensures NI rules are made by Eu which we will have zero power over and will diverge from UK.
You can look up what sovereignty means in the dictionary and you will find that is a change in sovereignty

I am not too wound up about it as I see anything other than an agreed exit will be contrary to the gfa. But agreement will come I believe. So we don’t need to worry about gfa

So if you looked up sovereignty in a book, you'd know that having your own people check your goods for compliance to standards isn't in any way a dilution of it. If that were the case, you wouldn't be able to enter any trade deals whatsoever.

Anthracite

downcow wrote: »

Why argue against the obvious just because it doesn’t suit your agenda.
I’ll explain it slowly.
No changes to be made to sovereignty of NI without support of people in a referendum

How do East-West customs checks change the sovereignty of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland (as part of the UK) voted for exactly the situation where such checks would be required. It would be violation of their sovereignty if these checks were not implemented.

Anthracite

downcow wrote: »

That is just nonsense to suit your agenda. Are you saying you would be happy with checks on the carlingford ferry?

Sure, why not? As long as nobody inconveniences me as I travel around my country by road.

FrancieBrady

downcow wrote: »

So how does a few checks at Newry affect the constitutional position on NI.

What?

Seriously, do you know what you are talking about here?

downcow

Tell me how wrote: »

Because at Newry the checking facilities would symbolise to some an unacceptable division of the island of Ireland represented and enforced with a physical structure.

Do you not understand that my community feel NI is completely part on UK and when we pass through Dundalk heading north we are heading back home. I guess it’s how you feel when you arrive back in Dublin from England.
So increasing divergence from Uk will make me feel exactly how you would feel with checks at the border.
Do you get this or is it over your head? I am really interested.

downcow

prawnsambo wrote: »

So if you looked up sovereignty in a book, you'd know that having your own people check your goods for compliance to standards isn't in any way a dilution of it. If that were the case, you wouldn't be able to enter any trade deals whatsoever.

So if northern nationalists feel Irish then they should know that having their own people check their goods at Newry should feel really nice as well. Serious double standards over and over again on this thread.

eagle eye

The Backstop was a major advantage for the EU in negotiating because it meant they had the UK under the thumb.

I don't see anybody saying that but it's the truth.
I don't care about all this stuff anyways. My only concern is the Republic of Ireland first and foremost and the Island of Ireland. Neither side seem to give a hoot about us. As I said earlier the EU have a responsibility to protect us as citizens and need to get a deal done whatever it takes.

I'm not fan of a lot of the idiots in the UK including Corbyn who is an incredibly thick and in many ways stupid man. Boris Johnson is another idiot who had great sway in the UK and his switch was the key factor in the successful Brexit campaign I think. Teresa May was handed a bunch of dynamite and took out a match and lit them. The less said about Gove the better and Farage doesn't even deserve a mention.

Those people can be hated by lots of people but that isn't going to fix anything. Clearly they are not capable of running a government, none of them. The backstop has only become an issue for them over the last couple of weeks. I mean how could you not know that this was hampering your attempts at a good deal?
As stupid as all these people are in many ways most of them are powerful in the UK right now. The EU need to get something sorted for us. I want to hear promises from them about our safety. I want to hear promises that we are not heading for another period of austerity measures.

People talk about a hard border leading to more jobs in this country but those jobs aren't going to help rural Ireland and the many jobs for the ordinary man which will be lost.
There is already enough of a gap between Dublin and rural Ireland and making it worse isn't going to help things. All that is going to happen is that more and more independent td's will be elected and make it impossible for a government to run the country.

Anyways my main gripe is that we are not being looked after. I don't trust Leo Varadkar or Fine Gael when it comes to Europe because I feel they bow down and accept whatever the EPP recommends. They care more about Europe than the Republic of Ireland imo.

prawnsambo

downcow wrote: »

Do you not understand that my community feel NI is completely part on UK and when we pass through Dundalk heading north we are seeing back home. I guess it’s how you feel when you arrive back in Dublin from England.
So increasing divergence from FB will make me feel exactly how you would feel with checks at the border.
Do you get this or is it over your head? I am really interested.

The parts of the GFA that require an open border aren't for us. They are for the people in the border counties who are most affected. Some of whom even have houses or farms that straddle the border. Do you not get that?

downcow

FrancieBrady wrote: »

What?

Seriously, do you know what you are talking about here?

Why not answer it if you think I don’t know what I’m talking about

Donald Trump

downcow wrote: »

That is just nonsense to suit your agenda. Are you saying you would be happy with checks on the carlingford ferry?

Anybody should be able to grasp the simple distinction between the logistics of monitoring flow of goods and people through a handful of ports and airports vs hundreds of road crossing points along the border.

Frank Bullitt

Another infuriating watch, ill pick one line from this which is when Anna Maria Corazza Bilot mentions the GFA, Gerard Batten calls it an "irrelevancy".

They do not care about peace in NI, at all.

Worth having a look at the comments under it as well.

Anthracite

downcow wrote: »

Do you not understand that my community feel NI is completely part on UK and when we pass through Dundalk heading north we are seeing back home. I guess it’s how you feel when you arrive back in Dublin from England.
So increasing divergence from FB will make me feel exactly how you would feel with checks at the border.
Do you get this or is it over your head? I am really interested.

You also understand that your community is only one of two communities that live on the northern end of our island?

Donald Trump

eagle eye wrote: »

The Backstop was a major advantage for the EU in negotiating because it meant they had the UK under the thumb.

I don't see anybody saying that but it's the truth.

You are forgetting that the backstop was originally only supposed to apply to NI.

Problem is that TM called her election which put her under the thumb of the DUP and hence UK insisted it apply to UK as a whole.

That is why the problem exists. If it applied to only NI then the rest of UK would be free to do what it wanted unimpeded and NI would have the best of both worlds.

FrancieBrady

eagle eye wrote: »

. They care more about Europe than the Republic of Ireland imo.

I hate to point this out, but Ireland is Europe - we are advising the other 26 on the backstop and have lobbied for a measure such as it.

prawnsambo

eagle eye wrote: »

The Backstop was a major advantage for the EU in negotiating because it meant they had the UK under the thumb.

You just throw stuff up here and rant, but don't engage with anyone who responds. I don't agree with your premise of the EU using the backstop as a method of keeping the UK under the thumb because it was a UK negotiated position in the first place.

First Up

downcow wrote:

A permanent backstop ensures NI rules are made by Eu which we will have zero power over and will diverge from UK.

Well there is a thing called negotiation but as UK law is currently aligned to the EU (which is what enables half of its trade to be seamless) it is pretty far fetched that the EU will introduce anything radically different. Granted it limits the UK's scope to lower technical or food standards but most of those are needed for trade anyway for commercial reasons.

In any case nobody wants or is threatening a permanent backstop. But putting a time limit on it misses the point.

But why such insecurity to equate negotiated international agreements with a loss of sovereignty?

downcow

prawnsambo wrote: »

The parts of the GFA that require an open border aren't for us. They are for the people in the border counties who are most affected. Some of whom even have houses or farms that straddle the border. Do you not get that?

My argument is that these people are getting seriously used by Eu and roi as a bargaining chip.
I live 20 miles from border so have some sense of the issues. This could all be sorted with no borders with a bit of good will. But I’m confident that will come in a few weeks.

Midlife

downcow wrote: »

Do you not understand that my community feel NI is completely part on UK and when we pass through Dundalk heading north we are heading back home. I guess it’s how you feel when you arrive back in Dublin from England.
So increasing divergence from Uk will make me feel exactly how you would feel with checks at the border.
Do you get this or is it over your head? I am really interested.

I get you on this Downcow but I want to know what the solution is?

Britian don't want to remain in the customs union, they don't want a backstop, they don't want a hard border.

What exactly do they want?

Edit: This isn't some smart rhetorical question. I really don't know.

downcow

Donald Trump wrote: »

Anybody should be able to grasp the simple distinction between the logistics of monitoring flow of goods and people through a handful of ports and airports vs hundreds of road crossing points along the border.

So what is it about? Is it about travel being hampered? Because that is certainly not the line that is being spun. The line is about peace/gfa/etc.
If it is honestly about the flow of goods then why don’t Eu UK and roi sit down and talk about that?

Seth Brundle

downcow wrote: »

My argument is that these people are getting seriously used by Eu and roi as a bargaining chip.
I live 20 miles from border so have some sense of the issues. This could all be sorted with no borders with a bit of good will. But I’m confident that will come in a few weeks.

How on earth does goodwill resolve the border issues?

Hurrache

downcow wrote: »

My argument is that these people are getting seriously used by Eu and roi as a bargaining chip.
I live 20 miles from border so have some sense of the issues. This could all be sorted with no borders with a bit of good will. But I’m confident that will come in a few weeks.

Tell us how? Because a vast amount of people haven't been able to square that circle over the last few years with May's red lines.

prawnsambo

downcow wrote: »

My argument is that these people are getting seriously used by Eu and roi as a bargaining chip.
I live 20 miles from border so have some sense of the issues. This could all be sorted with no borders with a bit of good will. But I’m confident that will come in a few weeks.

They are hardly being used if they agree with the notion. And most polls show that they do. A hard brexit would have 60% of the population supporting a UI, so that's serious enough. Is that what you want?

Calina

downcow wrote: »

My argument is that these people are getting seriously used by Eu and roi as a bargaining chip.
I live 20 miles from border so have some sense of the issues. This could all be sorted with no borders with a bit of good will. But I’m confident that will come in a few weeks.

The goodwill is May dropping her redlines and staying in the single market and the customs union.

The backstop was a UK invention accepted to accommodate the UK.

These people as you call them were screwed over by the DUP rejecting best of both worlds because they lack confidence and faith in their own ideology.

Nody

downcow wrote: »

My argument is that these people are getting seriously used by Eu and roi as a bargaining chip.
I live 20 miles from border so have some sense of the issues. This could all be sorted with no borders with a bit of good will. But I’m confident that will come in a few weeks.

How many times do we need to point out that it is ILLEGAL under WTO terms to not have any border controls for a third party country (that would be UK or Ireland respectively) to not have controls that apply to other countries? Let me repeat this for the 1000th time; WTO Most Favorable Nation REQUIRES all WTO countries to be treated the same when it comes to controls at the border for import & export.

No controls at NI/Ireland border? No controls allowed for ANY other border either. Can you now understand this basic fundamental fact of trade in the world or do we need to repeat this circus again as you ignore the facts being pointed out to you that you don't want to deal with?

Lemming

I don't think anyone has linked this yet; from yesterday (only spotted it today) on the BBC website: US firms seek changes to UK standards on beef and drugs. Whislt the whole article smacks of "and so it begins", these bits in particular (bold emphasis is mine) stood out for me as a case of 'with friends like these ... '

On farming:

BBC article wrote:

The farming groups say any deal should move away from EU standards, including rules governing genetically modified crops, antibiotics in meats, and pesticides and herbicides, such as glyphosate.

Glyphosate .... also commonly known as 'Roundup' weed killer; do a google on it as I don't want to drag this discussion off-topic. Keywords: Monsanto, knowingly, cancer, US court ruling.

On tech:

US firms also want to bar a proposed UK tax on digital services and prohibit rules requiring that data be stored locally.

There is also widespread support to push the UK raise the amount that triggers customs duties from £135 closer to the US level of $800 - more than £600.

Such a move would make it easier for small businesses to export to the UK, said companies including e-commerce site Etsy.

The question of data storage is very important when it comes to cloud-storage, along with your rights to control your data, which jurisdiction it is governed by and your data privacy rights.
And less cash for UK customs at the benefit of US businesses; I sincerely doubt the US will reciprocate on that. On the face of it that looks like a benefit for the small people ordering stuff from the US, but not really as there'll be an inevitable squeeze on government funding somewhere, which usually translates to higher taxes and reduced services.

On health:

It heavily criticised the current NHS drug approval system, pointing to the cap on the price of drugs as too restrictive, and highlighting insufficient healthcare budgets and "rigid" national processes.

The organisation, as well as some other groups, are also hoping to secure patent protections for certain types of drugs for at least 12 years, among other demands.

Effectively wanting to export the worst excesses of the US healthcare industry.

downcow

Hurrache wrote: »

Tell us how? Because a vast amount of people haven't been able to square that circle over the last few years with May's red lines.

This may be a very nieve question but what are these red lines of Mays?