Brexit discussion thread IX (Please read OP before posting)

Patser wrote: »

Coincidentally here's Francois yesterday saying it would be worth destroying the British car industry, in the name of sovereignty as at least it would be 'their choice'

https://www.indy100.com/article/mark-francois-no-deal-brexit-sky-news-adam-boulton-car-industry-8977136

I am more interested in what he will be saying if there is a hard Brexit and the place is in ruins. Will he start blaming the EU then?

Water John wrote: »

The civil servant in charge of No Deal planning in the UK, gets out before it all hits the fan.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/27/brexit-civil-servant-in-charge-of-no-deal-planning-quits

“There is actually a Mr Big of no deal in Whitehall, very clever and very well paid, who was so integral to the process we joked that if he was hit by a No 53 bus on Parliament Square, Brexit wouldn’t happen!”, former Conservative Party MP Stewart Jackson wrote in the Times in an article sources said was a reference to Shinner.

At 33, bloody hell.

Did a quick bit of research on this guy, there was quite a bit of kerfuffle when he was originally appointed as a senior advisor on £100k at 28 years old.

By all accounts he has a mixture of being very clever and hardworking, and a lot of posh connections.

But ultimately he cannot be more than 15 years out of college, no matter how good he is at anything. And is it really possible that amount of experience is sufficient to lead the most important project in modern British history?

Sounds like Shinner is clever enough to know that **** rolls downhill, but it has to land on someone at the bottom, and he was going to be that someone.

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.

This is exactly the scenario i also envisage and similarly feel that Leo and the government may have scored an own goal on this.

The border is being weaponized.
It's all about the blame game, and this means the game is positioning oneself so that the other party gets landed with the blame.

I have a feeling that immediately after border infastructure is stood up, the EU gets the blame.
But I don't think that EU gets all the blame

We have a choice, and we'll get the blame too.
The Brits would rather we Irexit with them and by not standing up a border we would be helping toward that goal.

I think it's worth exploring what the blame may look like:
I imagine the Brexiteers will claim that it is Ireland that is unilaterally withdrawing from the GFA by standing up a border.
Of course we all know that in context this is rubbish, but this is the sort of nastiness that I am growing to expect from them.
It's possible that the Tories will use this faux position to more or less renounce the GFA.
Or at least allow them wiggle room to cherry-pick the bits they want from it - like the Northern Assembly etc and jettison the Irish Language bits etc.

I wonder, and i'm being really dark here: will they abandon the very concept of a NI refrenda to decide the consitutional status should a majority desire it? Basically scuppering any chance of a United Ireland?


What depths are the more sinister Tories willing to go?
It's not pretty rabbit hole to navigate.

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

That said, the Mercosur deal he references is somewhat of a double-edged sword for us - reports the beef quota will be 100,000 tonnes per year.

Yeah but it's not agreed yet and we have a veto - though that's unlikely given our vulnerable position. Just have to trust that the consumer will continue to see Irish beef as superior and safer.

BluePlanet wrote:

The border is being weaponized. It's all about the blame game, and this means the game is positioning oneself so that the other party gets landed with the blame.

What's this obsession with "blame"?

Winning the "blame game" doesn't achieve anything; it doesn't change investment decisions, it doesn't maintain export sales and it certainly doesn't protect jobs.

The EU doesn't give a hoot about "blame" and rightly so. The focus should be - and is - on making the best of the situation.

First Up wrote: »

What's this obsession with "blame"?

Winning the "blame game" doesn't achieve anything; it doesn't change investment decisions, it doesn't maintain export sales and it certainly doesn't protect jobs.

The EU doesn't give a hoot about "blame" and rightly so. The focus should be - and is - on making the best of the situation.

That's a fair question.
I'm not sure, but i think it's part of self preservation for the Tories.
But I also think it's part of spinning a narrative where other decisions get built upon.

BluePlanet wrote:

That's a fair question. I'm not sure, but i think it's part of self preservation for the Tories. But I also think it's part of spinning a narrative where other decisions get built upon.

I understand why UK politicians indulge in it. No reason why anyone else should.

Boris may actually become PM without being properly questioned about his plans for Brexit. I think that will be a real shame for the UK, not to mention Ireland.

They roll out his supporters such as Duncan-Smith or Priti Patel , badly briefed, who just trot out the same old lines. Meanwhile Boris is avoiding any real scrutiny and people seem more interested in his private life.

He needs a Paxman style grilling

Boris reckons there will be enough whey for Mars Bars post Brexit... weight off my mind

The Cons really hate Corbyn dont they. Hes portrayed as the boogeyman lurking in the undergrowth

Brexit is a religion/cult now. No deviation, no one listening to other views. This is it.

Hermy wrote:

In the event of Scottish independence how do they get the North Sea oil and gas? Does London just hand it over as it's in their [Scotland's] territorial waters? Is there a legal formality to guide the situation? Or is it something more along the lines of a trade negotiation?

They have been one country since 1603 so quite a lot more than oil to unpick

There's a report in the Indo (online) today citing a Bord Bia survey on the Brexit preparedness of Irish companies. Selectively quoting from the beginning and the end:

Bord Bia's report found that 93pc of companies have made preparations for Brexit compared to 74pc in 2018.

The latest Bord Bia Barometer shows a shift in focus from growth in the UK to maintaining market share, with 74pc of companies now actively seeking to expand in to new markets.

Accepting that Irish food companies are intimately integrated into the UK market, imagine that kind of a shift being replicated across 26 other EU countries, and perhaps even Commonwealth countries recognising that a certain and stable market of 500-million is a safer bet than one of 60-million that doesn't know what it wants.

One way or another, if 93% of Irish businesses are ready for any kind of Brexit, suddenly that no-deal scenario doesn't look so cliff-like for us. I'm not sure the same could be said for businesses in the UK.