Brexit discussion thread IX (Please read OP before posting)

Leroy42 wrote: »

Yeah, I have that feeling as well. The very fact that he seemingly has little idea of what is actually involved would suggest he was simply making something up.

The more I see/hear from Johnson the more I see the same playbook that worked so well with Trump and obviously has Bannon helping.

Even the argument and picture issue could have easily been dealt with but it actually serves Johnson better to play the victim and also use up valuable interview time instead of deep questioning about his lack of a plan.

And it works because he knows Hunt doesn't have a plan either and so even his opponent doesn't want to get into a debate.

Watching the YouTube link, he was clearly making it up, he started out completely nonplussed and was searching for what he could say. As you say, he didn't even know what materials he makes these buses out of.

But TBH if you watch the start of the interview where he's asked what his first steps will be if he becomes PM, he's just as obviously spoofing there too, waving his hands around and waffling vaguely about getting "the best bits" of the agreement through parliament. Which best bits? Nah, don't bother even asking.

Plausible Paisley will be suspended again and for longer after the revelations on Spotlight that his dragged out admission didn't cover everything. Brings the numbers even tighter

Don't dump videos here please.

listermint wrote: »

Hence I said road to run till October.

The stupid part is their are those out there that expect our government to lay out all their plans. such a thing would have huge impact on negotiations.

So they are right to keep stum.

I disagree. I think Varadkar has missed a trick here.

His line has always been "we won't be erecting border controls [because we expect the UK to honour its no-hard-border guarantee in all circumstances, and therefore it won't be necessary]". But the bit in brackets is easily eclipsed by people who are motivated to eclipse it, or it is easily read down to "...because we expect the UK not to erect border controls". And this gives rise to two problems.

First, it lends apparent support to the Brexiter line that "UK won't erect border controls! Ireland won't erect border controls! So where's the problem? No need for a backstop! Whole thing is a sinister EU plot to frustrate Brexit/punish the UK/annex NI!" The truth of the matter is otherwise - mutually agreed arrangements are necessary to avoid a hard border and the corollary of that is, if there are no mutually agreed arrangments, there will be a hard border. It doesn't help the case for the backstop to try to sugar-coat this.

Secondly Varadkar makes a rod for his own back. If and when it becomes necessary to start operating controls on cross-border traffic, Varadkar will be accused of failing to deliver on his own commitment not to erect controls, and/or it will be said that this shows that Ireland is not truly independent, must obey the diktats of the faceless unelected bureaucrats of Brussels, yadda, yadda, yadda. And all this will help to alleviate the pressure on the people who will actually be to blame for this, which is the UK government.

Varadkar's line should have been "we will do everything we can to avoid a hard border, but we don't see that it can be avoided if the UK won't enter into agreed arrangements which are effective to avoid the need for border controls."

As for the details of the controls that might be erected, I don't see how releasing these would have an adverse impact on negotaitions. That looks too much like the "keeping our cards close to our chest" sh!te that the UK government trotted out in 2016 and 2017 to conceal the fact that it had no clue what its position would be in the Brexit negotiations. I think it would be fair enough (and quite truthful) to say "we'll have to be flexible in our response to a developing, probably chaotic and hopefully quite short-term state of affairs on the border, so we can't tell you in detail how this will unfold and what controls will be put in place until it actually unfolds. But, yeah, in a crash-out no-deal Brexit the border will harden, and we will have to put in place appropriate and effective controls on cross-border trade to protect our place in the Customs Union and the Single Market".

If Varadkar had managed expectations better on this over the past year or so, once it became clear that the UK might actually shoot itself in the face rather than honour its guarantees, I think he'd be a slightly more comfortable position now that he is looking down the barrel of the gun.

CelticRambler wrote: »

If you'd asked me to summarise his statements on this over the last couple of years, that's pretty much the same text I would have used. So either I've applied my own Brexity double-speak filter to make him say what I want to hear, or he's consistently used language that makes it clear that that's what he means, even if he avoids using more precise and/or provocative words.

Whatever about the implications for his own future position in Ireland, I doubt any choice of phrase or declaration of intent would change things for the better in respect of the attitude on the English side of the Irish Sea.

I agree with that. I don't think it's a question of actually winning over Brexiters, so much as of not giving them ammunition for their mendacious campaign. "Ireland has said it will not introduce border controls" is a constant them of the Brexiter campaign to belittle the backstop and the need for it, and I think Varadkar should have been explicit from the outset that Ireland would[/ii] introduce border controls if the UK's actions made it necessary. Certainly he should have been doing that throughout this year, when "no-deal" is being advanced as a serious policy option by people who should know better.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Varadkar's line should have been "we will do everything we can to avoid a hard border, but we don't see that it can be avoided if the UK won't enter into agreed arrangements which are effective to avoid the need for border controls."

I don't disagree with your post, but if every politician on both sides and in the EU has said they will protect the GFA, why should Leo be the first to openly talk about putting up borders? This would be openly questioning the UK and whether they would be living up to their obligations, as they have said they would. We cannot assume the worst in public of our closest neighbour.

This is a waiting game, you prepare for the worst but in no way do you publicly let this be known.

Link may be paywalled, I'm not sure, but a good concise piece in the FT around Johnsons Gatt 24 rubbish:

https://twitter.com/alanbeattie/status/1143486078218907653

Peregrinus wrote:

I think we're past that. At this point not to acknowledge that the worst could realistically happen doesn't look like diplomacy so much as like living in denial.

The worst is just one of the several contingencies that has been planned for by Ireland and the EU.

First Up wrote: »

The worst is just one of the several contingencies that has been planned for by Ireland and the EU.

Yes. The issue, though, is not whether we should plan for the worst, but whether we should talk about our plans for the worst. I think we should, and we should have been doing so for some months now.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yes. The issue, though, is not whether we should plan for the worst, but whether we should talk about our plans for the worst. I think we should, and we should have been doing so for some months now.

Everyone who should know about them knows about them.

Leroy42 wrote: »

When they talk about No Deal they mean no formal WA type pack. They fully expect lots of side deals and extensions. They are trying to bypass the WA and move directly to trade negotiations, exactly as they have always done.

They are banking on an implementation period, even if it's not actually called that, whereby everything stays pretty much as is and they can roll the WA into trade talks.

Totally agree this is the case, but given how the EU has given no indication it will budge (nor should it), I suspect the UK is in for a very rude awakening on 1st Nov. Autumn/winter 2019 has the potential to be truly monumental.

volchitsa wrote: »

But that is complete delusion, especially from people for whom one of the major issues with the EU was the need to "control our borders". And there's really no point in trying to reason with someone who is delusional. They will just take what you've said and integrate it into their fantasy. Or dismiss it.

The aim is not to reason with the delusional, so much as to counter the narrative that the delusional are pushing on the merely uninformed.

As long as Varadkar doesn not say, very clearly, that if there is a crash-out Brexit with no backstop, border controls are inevitable, then he allows the delusional to cherry-pick his own past comments to spin the line that the backstop is unnecessary, since border controls can be avoided without it. That narrative needs to be contradicted so that (a) people in the UK correctly understand what choosing or allowing a crash-out would entail, and (b) when border controls are instituted the blame lies where it should.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Because he may, in fact, be the first to have to put up borders.

If there is a crash-out Brexit, both sides will need to erect controls but neither side will want to be seen to be the first to erect controls. So there'll be a kind of Mexican standoff, with each waiting for the other to move, and both hoping that developments elsewhere will resolve the position before either has to move. (E.g. Ireland will hope that chaos at UK's channel ports, shortage of consumer goods, collapse in industrial output, will bring UK back to table before border issue get really pressing.)

But if the situation isn't resolved in this way fairly soon one of them will have to move first, and that will probably be Ireland, because we have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the SM and the CU both for our own advantage and in solidarity with other member states. (Solidarity is two-way, remember.) UK will already be suffering masive reputational damage and economic dislocation from crash-out Brexit; problems resulting from open Irish border will be small beer to them, so they can let them ride for longer than we can afford to.

So, forseeably, Varadkar will be moving on border controls before UK does. So, if nothing else, it's in his interests to manage Irish public expectations in this regard.

I don't think we need to move before the UK though. Why should we be talking and preparing for a border when the UK has indicated multiple times there will not be a border? We may be the first to start preparations, but that will only be after the UK has indicated it will break their obligations and what they have said and written to the EU and Ireland,

Peregrinus wrote: »

That consideration for a long time justified Varadkar not speculating in public about what he would do if the UK decided not to honour its guarantee.

But not any more. UK Parliament has rejected the backstop and has not advanced any serious alternative, and for many months now leading UK figures are openly contemplating, even calling for, a no-deal Brexit, which is of course the legal and legislated default. I think we can safely discuss what would happen, and what would have to happen, in that event without being accused of making unwarranted and uncharitable assumptions. Failing to honour its guarantee is very much a policy option under active and open consideration in the UK.

I think we're past that. At this point not to acknowledge that the worst could realistically happen doesn't look like diplomacy so much as like living in denial.

But the UK Parliament has also ruled out no-deal repeatedly as well which would mean no border. All options are on the table and none have been ruled out by the UK so why should we focus on one outcome?

What we also have to take into account is that we are in a election campaign so we should not be making decisions or take actions when it could influence the two candidates and what they promise they will deliver.