Brexit discussion thread VIII (Please read OP before posting)

Itssoeasy wrote: »

Just before the 8am news on bbc five live a caller from NI made some very sensible points to a Tory MP from Dover who used project fear and the usual buzz words and the caller sounded more logical than the MP.

This is why many MPs do not want to have a 2nd Ref. - the public would turn Brexit on its head.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, it's not as simple as that.

The UK declined steadily in the rankings before joining the EU - it was 4th (after US, USSR, W Germany) in 1960; 5th in 1965 (overtaken by France); 6th in 1970 (overtaken by Japan). It remained in sixth place throught the 70s and 80s. falling to 7th in 1990 (overtaken by Italy).

Then the rise began. By 1995 they were back to 5th place (overtook Italy, Soviet Union knocked out of the running by Events), and by 2005 they were in 4th place (overtook France). By 2010 they were back to 6th place (impact of GFC, overtaken by France and China), before clawing their way back to 5th (overtaking France) just before the Brexit referendum.

So, bit of a mixed bag. But if there's one event which is associated with a marked improvement in the UK's rankings, it's not joining the EEC in 1973; it's the completion of the Single Market in 1993, which led to a steady improvement that continued until the GFC.

These rankings are good for headlines, but they are of course hugely affected by exchange rate movements. In particular the sequence of UK and France regularly leapfrogging one another probably tells you more about EUR:GBP exchange rate movements than it does about the economic productivity of the two countries. There's an alternative measure which seeks to rank countries by GDP based on purchasing power parity; I don't claim to understand the technicalities, but this measure aims to correct for the effect of exchange rate movements, and so show a truer picture of relative economic improvement.

Awkwardly, by this measure, the UK ranks only 9th, down from 8th in 1980 due to the rise of India. Happily, though, it's still ahead of France (10th), whcih will please the headline-writers in certain papers.

I think I also read that their GDP per head actually pushes them down to around 23rd or so.

So you can work the stats to give whatever value suits the argument really

Honest question, why the hell didnt the UK decide what kind of Brexit they wanted BEFORE triggering article 50? Instead of negotiating a deal no one wanted, they could have held votes in parliment to find out what the majority was for(if any) now we're left in a right mess with no plan b or c and no one seems to know what they are doing. Its incompetence to an almost criminal level

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

Fully agree. May has to take a lot of blame for this. After she got the big job she went for a hard Brexit with her famous red lines and drove the bus ever since. Triggered art 50 before any sort of consensus was achieved. The seeds for the present chaos were sown then.

She seems to have thought that she had a mandate to deliver her version of brexit, without consulting anyone else

Shelga wrote: »

It’s unbelievable what a shambles it is, and how little is decided, 5 days after the original leave date!

The only minor defence I can think of is I remember the opinion of the time being that the EU would not contemplate any talks until they had triggered article 50. Which is fair enough.

However, there was nothing to stop cross-party talks happening before they did this. What was the rush? I think every one of the 500-odd MPs who voted to trigger article 50 must now hold their hands up and admit their culpability in this mess. Although didn’t Corbyn whip his Labour MPs to vote for the motion?

Anyway, we are where we are.

Now we have to go back to 2009 people losing their jobs, people emigrating, people losing their homes over this crock of ****...The UK is a big economy and could probably withstand it and come out the other side eventually, but do the ends justify the means? I dont think so

Stacksofwacks wrote: »

Honest question, why the hell didnt the UK decide what kind of Brexit they wanted BEFORE triggering article 50? Instead of negotiating a deal no one wanted, they could have held votes in parliment to find out what the majority was for(if any) now we're left in a right mess with no plan b or c and no one seems to know what they are doing. Its incompetence to an almost criminal level

With hindsight - and, actually, even with foresight - this is what they should have done, but it wouldn't necessarily have worked out any better.

The harsh facts are:

- there's only a bare majority of support from Brexit in the UK; and

- among Brexiters, there is no agreement on what the point of Brexit is, why it's a good idea, what it should acheive, etc, etc.

Any deliverable Brexit involves tough choices; you have to decide what you will prioritise and what you will let go of. This isn't the result of the EU bullying, or of the EU being tough negotiators, or of the UK's strategic weakness, or anything like that; it's inherent in the nature of Brexit. Even if on balance you think EU membership is a bad thing, it undoubtedly has some advantage for the UK. There is no possible Brexit which gives the UK all the benefits and none of the burdens of EU membership, so in any Brexit you have to trade off the rewards you seek, and the prices you will pay - hence the touch choices. And if Brexiters dont' agree on what the point of Brexit is, what is supposed to acheive, then differetn Brexiters will make different choices in this regard.

Which means, as soon as you start making the choices you need to make to turn an aspiration for Brexit into a deliverable form of Brexit, support starts to peel off. By compromising on X, you lose the Brexiters for whom X is the whole point of Brexit. There is no "X" for which this is not true. And since you started out with only a bare majority for Brexit, you pretty quicklly get to apoint where you have lost that majority.

The Commons trying to negotiate its way towards a deliverable Brexit would have found this problem, just as Teresa May found it. And, given the adversarial nature of parlaimentary proceedings in the UK, I think it would have been just as hard for them to solve as it was for her

Of course, hightlighting this problem at an earlier stage would have given them more time to address it, and might perhaps have prevented them from making a number of mistakes that May made which have compounded the problem - like the contradictory red lines.

LeinsterDub wrote: »

https://twitter.com/nadams/status/1113359638769164289



A trickle or a flow this time ?

Good news or bad news?

Stacksofwacks wrote: »

Good news or bad news?

At this stage it's like everything in brexit . It's just news . Events are moving so quickly and unpredictably that no one has time to take stock.

Stacksofwacks wrote: »

Its going to end up no deal isnt it.. You cant have this amount of chaos and dysfunction within an organisation and expect it to end well

From here, all possible endings are bad. No matter how this ends up, we will be able to say that it didn't end well.

joe40 wrote: »

I fully agree that May bears massive responsibility for this mess due to insistence on "red lines" at an early stage in the process.

However I don't think it would have been possible to get consensus in the HoC at any stage because too many people held the view that the EU would cave in to pressure therefore there was no requirement to pursue soft Brexit in some minds. EU would simply accept the British position eventually.

It was Jan/Feb before the penny dropped for many that the EU would support the GFA and not simply give in. For some (insert DUP) that penny is still suspended somewhere.

She could get consensus right now, today, if she brought a motion calling for her MV3 on the condition that there was a legally binding confirmatory referendum with the option to remain. Both Labour and the Tories would whip for it, as would the SNP and the Lib Dems, and the 'Leave.UK' party which would more than cancel out the number of rebels in the Tory and Labour parties

She just doesn't want to because it would cost her party votes in the next election.

Crashing out of the EU could cost them a hell of a lot more once the grim reality sets in, but hey ho, logic doesn't always win out

So, for all the talk of the EU blinking and giving in at the 11th hour (throwing Ireland under the bus, allowing the UK whatever they wanted) it appears very much that the UK have blinked, and blinked hard.

It has to be understood just what a monumental course of action TM is taking. Whilst in the EU and lately in Ireland, compromise and discussion across parties is normal, it is almost unheard of in the UK. The fact that it is Corbyn, seen by many as the worst type of Labour leader, makes it even more staggering.
For all her talk of 22nd, in reality the EU don't have much choice her. They cannot let it get to the 22 May and then see the UK revoke A50 or ask for a longer extension. So the need now is to try to force the UK into making a decision. They have until 9th April, emergency summit being on 10th, at which the EU wil want to know a few things.

Is no deal fully off the table? IF yes then are they fully accepting the WA? If no then they need to prepare for EU elections.

In relation to Tm announcement, I actually think it might be quite clever. Create the very real possibility of Corbyn taking control and then rerun the MV to force the ERG etc to support it. Won't be this week, she needs to meet with JC first and give the impression that things are moving.

So she gets her deal, gets her party to get a unified position and leave Corbyn looking like a spare tool.

ERG could also go to Corbyn and help bring down the government. They hold the balance of power essentially

Leroy42 wrote: »

So, for all the talk of the EU blinking and giving in at the 11th hour (throwing Ireland under the bus, allowing the UK whatever they wanted) it appears very much that the UK have blinked, and blinked hard.

It has to be understood just what a monumental course of action TM is taking. Whilst in the EU and lately in Ireland, compromise and discussion across parties is normal, it is almost unheard of in the UK. The fact that it is Corbyn, seen by many as the worst type of Labour leader, makes it even more staggering.
For all her talk of 22nd, in reality the EU don't have much choice her. They cannot let it get to the 22 May and then see the UK revoke A50 or ask for a longer extension. So the need now is to try to force the UK into making a decision. They have until 9th April, emergency summit being on 10th, at which the EU wil want to know a few things.

Is no deal fully off the table? IF yes then are they fully accepting the WA? If no then they need to prepare for EU elections.

In relation to Tm announcement, I actually think it might be quite clever. Create the very real possibility of Corbyn taking control and then rerun the MV to force the ERG etc to support it. Won't be this week, she needs to meet with JC first and give the impression that things are moving.

So she gets her deal, gets her party to get a unified position and leave Corbyn looking like a spare tool.

It would be a stretch to propose that Corbyn and the Labour party don't get what is going on.
He will play along but ultimately I cannot see anything coming from it. The various leopards have not changed spots suddenly.

id say her suggestion for a short extension will fall on deaf ears in Brussels. once again the whole thing has a the look of a pretty shoddy attempt at a 3 card trick.
id say the eu will tell her she can have a long extension with eu elections. in the unlikely event the uk get the whole thing sorted by the 22nd of may then perhaps they need not send the MEP's to Brussels, but they will have to go ahead with the elections on the assumption it wont be sorted and then take at least a one year extension if not longer.