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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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trellheim

Isabelle Oakeshotte should not be platformed at all

Gina Miller taking people to school wonderfully on QT

Folkstonian

Can somebody explain the point of Richard Burgon being on Question Time?

I’ve no idea why he’s pushed into so many media appearances by Labour, he’s dreadful.

boggerman1

The Tory woman when asked for solutions to the British border in Ireland just waffled on and on.and once again the reaction in the audience shows the English are doubling down on we voted leave and to hell with the results

blackcard

jm08 wrote: »

sandbelter wrote: »

i have to say I agree, I'm constantly surprised by the large number of NI Catholic's that view themselves as British. As for the Unionist, they have always been very honest as to they are; They have never shown any interest in being Irish, they arrived British, lived British, died British.

That doesn't hold up in surveys. 4% of catholics view themselves as British in NI.

58.6% said they felt Irish
57.9% said they felt Northern Irish
56.7% said they felt European
46.7% for people who felt British.
29% of people from a Protestant background defined themselves as Irish
4% of people from a Catholic background who identified as British.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/less-than-half-of-people-in-northern-ireland-consider-themselves-british-survey-36991147.html

100% of people from Ireland do not want to live in the same country as Sammy Wilson

trellheim

The Tory woman when asked for solutions to the British border in Ireland just waffled on and on.and once again the reaction in the audience shows the English are doubling down on we voted leave and to hell with the results

The huge applause to the "But the EU are holding us to ransom" is shocking. It's Lincoln so draw your own conclusions

trellheim

Motherwell next week will be fun ... hardcore new Glasgow

Folkstonian

I bet Gina Miller didn’t expect to get a rapturous round of applause from the leave supporters tonight.

She’s not wrong about May and Robbins having agreed to make Britain wholly subservient to E.U. policy either

The EU negotiators deserve medals for the job they did on May’s team

Mr.Nice Guy

Is there going to be a Question Time in Belfast or Derry before March 29th?

prawnsambo

prawnsambo wrote: »

I think you are mixing up two polls there. That table is from an earlier QUB poll and not the one that the article is about which was carried out by Lucid Talk. And the figures in the Lucid Talk are dramatically different from the QUB one.

Here's the link to the Lucid Talk latest polling data taken in December last year. Quite interesting. Asked questions like what people would do if there's a hard brexit or TM's deal. Also questions about the backstop and surprisingly (if all you listen to is the DUP), majority (65%) welcome it.

It splits result by gender, age group, region of NI, how they voted in 2016 and of course unionist or republican.

trellheim

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Is there going to be a Question Time in Belfast or Derry before March 29th?

No. Motherwell the last outside England before Brexit

Harrogate 28th March the last date.

Harry Palmr

trellheim wrote: »

The huge applause to the "But the EU are holding us to ransom" is shocking. It's Lincoln so draw your own conclusions

Mainly cabbages I believe.

Mr.Nice Guy

trellheim wrote: »

No. Motherwell the last outside England before Brexit

Harrogate 28th March the last date.

That's ridiculous!

boggerman1

trellheim wrote: »

No. Motherwell the last outside England before Brexit

Harrogate 28th March the last date.

Goes to show brexit is an English mess.not the rest of the union

trellheim

QT dates can be found as a dropdown here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5vyK2GwYrdQGFvCJyKNfZhn/join-the-question-time-audience/contact

"For which programme are you applying"

A Dub in Glasgo

trellheim wrote: »

Motherwell next week will be fun ... hardcore new Glasgow

Expect the BBC to fill the audience with unionists and crackpot Tories to 'show the balance'

nc6000

Folkstonian wrote:

Can somebody explain the point of Richard Burgon being on Question Time?

Folkstonian wrote:

Iâ€™ve no idea why heâ€™s pushed into so many media appearances by Labour, heâ€™s dreadful.

He just said the Labour policy on Brexit is to bring Leave and Remain voters together.

What does that mean?

c.p.w.g.w

nc6000 wrote: »

He just said the Labour policy on Brexit is to bring Leave and Remain voters together.

What does that mean?

Brexit light, leave but remain in the customs union. So have to follow EU rules, but have no MEP's.

That one tominey on QT is a fairly odious character. Full of non-sense

Anthracite

nc6000 wrote: »

What does that mean?

I'm not sure, but I'm getting a mental image of the 'Royal Rumbles' that the WWF used to stage in the 80s.

AtomicHorror

FrancieBrady wrote: »

A UI fixes many of the conundrums and pitfalls of Brexit.

Sure, in the same sense that setting fire to your car fixes that warning light that was on your dash all week.

Folkstonian

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Sure, in the same sense that setting fire to your car fixes that warning light that was on your dash all week.

Well, a United ireland would actually allow Britain to dive straight into negotiations for a Canada style free trade deal with the EU whilst not worrying about how and where to put customs checkpoints and other physical infrastructure so as not to infuriate to the point of political violence from one group or the other!

AtomicHorror

Folkstonian wrote: »

Well, a United ireland would actually allow Britain to dive straight into negotiations for a Canada style free trade deal with the EU whilst not worrying about how and where to put customs checkpoints and other physical infrastructure so as not to infuriate to the point of political violence one group or the other!

I think everybody gets that angle on it.

Folkstonian

AtomicHorror wrote: »

I think everybody gets that angle on it.

Oh okay. You appeared not to.

FrancieBrady

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Sure, in the same sense that setting fire to your car fixes that warning light that was on your dash all week.

What?

A UI by consensus will not be a car fire.

AtomicHorror

Folkstonian wrote: »

Oh okay. You appeared not to.

Glad we could clear up your misreading.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

What?

A UI by consensus will not be a car fire.

Who's talking about consensus? Regardless of the conditions causing some to see UI in a new light, a vote for it would be by majority, probably a narrow one, and likely very far from consensus. It hardly matters, since it would be a car fire if even a tiny fraction decide they wish it to be so.

FrancieBrady

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Glad we could clear up your misreading.

Who's talking about consensus? Regardless of the conditions causing some to see UI in a new light, a vote for it would be by majority, probably a narrow one, and likely very far from consensus. It hardly matters, since it would be a car fire if even a tiny fraction decide they wish it to be so.

And a hard border won't?

I know which scenario most Irish people would chose and the polls seem to agree.

CelticRambler

joe40 wrote: »

I really don't see a united ireland unless there is a serious deterioration in the economic situation in the north.
Even nationalist who would consider themselves "Irish" still look at things like paying for doctor visits, school books, bins etc as something they would have difficulty with.

And apart from the fruit pickers, which two groups of people in Britain are (present tense) being hardest hit by the Brexit-related exodus of skilled EU migrants? The NHS and Education.

This is where Brexit will reinforce an attitude of England for the English, and the "provinces" will be relegated to their "proper" position. As long as the UK maintains its FPTP two-party-and-miscellaneous-others system of government, those leave-voting Labour strongholds are going to be first, second and third in line for whatever funding is doled out by No.11 Downing Street. I have no doubt that as soon as the backstop, the "alternative arrangements" or whatever other solution to the border paradox is put in place, Westminster will get back to forgetting that NI exists, with an inevitable negative effect on every aspect of life for NI's citizens - of both political/religious persuasions.

Charles Babbage

Joe_ Public wrote: »

The thing that struck me in that whole discussion was Neil talking about GFA and its line about “normalising “ the border between south and north ire and wondering why you just couldn’t have a normal border like you have between France and Italy. I know most English people have a very poor grasp of Irish affairs but you’d expect a bit more from a respected broadcaster like Neil.

A "normal" European border like between France and Italy is just what people are asking for, the normal Single Market, the normal VAT union. If all the Anglo Irish stuff since the mid 80s means anything then the Irish border should be more convenient than other European borders, not much worse.

Leroy42

Not if the UK leave?

Peregrinus

Leroy42 wrote: »

Not if the UK leave?

Exactly. And the argument is that the UK leaving the EU, without entering into continuing arranagements to support the normalisation of the border in the way envisaged in 1998, would be a breach of the terms of the GFA in which the parties commit to normalisation of the border.

Infini

joe40 wrote: »

I really don't see a united ireland unless there is a serious deterioration in the economic situation in the north.
Even nationalist who would consider themselves "Irish" still look at things like paying for doctor visits, school books, bins etc as something they would have difficulty with. Northern unionist always had a wee superiority complex towards the south, and also quite a lot of nationalists have one as well, maybe subconsciously.
That is just based an anecdotal evidence I don't have figures to back it up so may be well off the mark. It is just the sense I get at times.
The reality is the south is a much more progressive society attracting fdi in a way the north couldn't dream off. People have got very dependant on the block grant so until that dries up significantly there will be no movement.
Even with that the security issues with hardline loyalist paramilitaries would be extremely difficult for irish security forces.
In saying that I would love to see a UI, but it would need to be a planned process over a number of years.

Let's be clear a United Ireland in this environment isn't going to be coming about just because of Brexit alone it's going to be multiple factors in play to cause it not to mention possible further bell-ended decisions by the conservatives. Examples include:

1)Hard Brexit utterly strangling trade cross border causing local chaos and misery.
2)Significant drop in the value of the Pound from current levels possibly 25% (89p=€1 after brexit inverts to 89c=£1 for example a complete role reversal)
3)Slashing of local services and benefits as UK government has it's income take a significant drop both in volume and international value
4)Major protests by people first by anti-border groups and possible swelling into a Unification movement with Farmer and Local Business supprt. Could attract significant support if things get bad and DUP are a massive target for causing such a mess as they would have been one of the primary motivators.
5)Significant rising costs of food and fuel with shortages included.
6)A significant chance of this happening if Scotland in the month's after Brexit breaks away in a 2nd indyref and possibly Rejoining the EU itself after (some have said Scotland could get fasttracked as being part of the EU prior to this would help it alot as it's laws would already be EU compatable for example)
7)Possible pushing by those in Westminster to try and offload the province to be rid of the Irish factor entirely.
8)Possible EU support for any reunification including grants etc to try and smooth the transition as this would be only the 2nd instance of this since the reunification of Germany.
9)Good behind the scene's contacts and consulting between the Irish State and Northern Authorities and planning to make any possible transition as smooth and painless as possible with unionist communities and groups about making sure any practical concerns they might have are addressed.

Ultimately it depends on what truly happens of course the best thing that could happen right now is that these gobshíte's in Westminster cancel Brexit at the last minute once they see the abyss they're about to plummet down but we don't know if they can slap themselves out of their ignorance fuelled pit in time. If they crash wether by accident or intentional malice by certain parties anything could be possible at that point but a Hard Car Crash Brexit will drastically reshape the dynamics in the medium term.