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Brexit discussion thread XI (Please read OP before posting)

Quin_Dub

This is the eleventh incarnation of our Brexit discussion thread,

Same warnings etc still apply:

As we are approaching the critical end of March October 2019 period, please bear the following in mind before posting:
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fash

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

Just on the ‘threats’ earlier by Gove reported in the Times, are we going to see them threaten us with the landbridge of it all? Can they do that?

Yes and no. Not openly since if they threaten us deliberately, then they are threatening the EU - and the EU can stop flights into the UK for example.
They can say "we'll try our best but unfortunately the consequences won't be controllable" - etc.
It's not that much of a threat since we've been expecting it, if I understand correctly we already stock medicines etc as we are an island at the end of a chain and we now have ship routes and capacity direct from Rotterdam. However I understand it has not been implemented yet - so there could be a week's disruption etc as the system switches over. I understand that there are some medicines which are only manufactured in the UK- which would be a problem for all of the EU. I am not sure where plans are for that. I assume we at least have medium term stashes.

For food and stuff, Ireland has now a lot of additional ro-ro ferries (2 biggest in the world)- plus additional direct routes:
(See here for a recent one Rosslare- LeHarve:

https://twitter.com/castlvillageman/status/1180165731931103235

)
If I remember correctly, some Irish companies are even providing the spare capacity to the UK government as part of their no deal preparations.
Perhaps someone is really involved in this and can say if there are any outstanding issues- but I can't really see significant problems- in particular since Ireland is remaining within SM so it is nothing like the UK's situation where massive additional customs complications are introduced- for which there is no space or capacity.

More info here:

https://twitter.com/timoconnorbl/status/1181070689429852162

Enzokk

This is from the article linked earlier about the disruption no-deal will cause us.

https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1181064520673976321?s=20

"Ministers are also considering a range of new “sweeteners” to offer Dublin, including a commitment to help to fund any infrastructure needed to enforce customs checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic."

So this is the infrastructure that the UK has committed to not having to erect on the border, they will help us pay for that? All about the money for the UK, always has been and always will be.

I found this interesting in the article as well from Steve Barclay,

Steve Barclay, the Brexit secretary, suggested that the UK could amend its proposals to give parties in Northern Ireland a veto on regulations that apply in the province after Brexit. Mr Barclay told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One: “The key issue is the principle of consent. That’s why the backstop was rejected three times. That was the concern in terms of both sides in Northern Ireland not approving of the backstop. So the key is the principle of consent. Now . . . as part of the intensive negotiations, we can look at that and discuss that.”

Talk about rewriting history, the backstop wasn't voted down because of consent. If they were so concerned they would have held a referendum in NI whether they would accept EU rules and regulations and a Irish Sea border instead of a Irish land border. But this was never a discussion point. Barclay is a liar just like Johnson. The interesting part is the last sentence in bold as well,

https://twitter.com/FabianZuleeg/status/1181085775431110656?s=20

So the UK is telling people there will be intensive negotiations and the EU is not entering into them. I still can't really figure out the plan here, they seem to just be trying 50 different things and if by hook or crook one comes off they will claim that was the masterplan from Cummings all along.

I think these are the positions of the UK,

We are ready for no-deal and will walk away - but there is intense negotiations happening.

We are leaving the EU on the 31st October but we will not break the law.

We will keep to the commitments in the GFA but we will enforce a border between NI and Ireland risking the peace that the GFA brought since the 1990's.

woohoo!!!

Day after day, week after week for the past 3 years demonstrate as to why the EU and Ireland are correct to insist that the border is locked down, agreed and ratified before trade talks. Both for the all Ireland economy and for the EU SM and CU cohesion. It's telling though that NI is expendable and the DUP are full square behind it once they have a veto.

Nemesis

Will changing/ending the Common Travel Area be used as a tactic to put pressure on Ireland?.

ancapailldorcha

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Mod: Back on topic please.

More posts deleted. Any more refugee posts will be sanctioned. Back on topic, please.

Peregrinus

Nemesis wrote: »

Will changing/ending the Common Travel Area be used as a tactic to put pressure on Ireland?.

Nothing that the UK government has said at any point would suggest this.

Lucy8080

Jennfer Arcuri interview on i.t.v. right now. I think the papers will have quotes to dream of here. My fav. so far was when she mentioned "bang for a buck".She may/may not be aware of the difference between BRitish and U.S. media. Morgan and Reid giving her all the space she needs to damage herself and bojo.Wait for the book!

Nody

Peregrinus wrote: »

Nothing that the UK government has said at any point would suggest this.

I wonder if this could possibly be a UKIP future route; they will need to go more extreme than the Tories obviously so why not go after the paddies? Talk up how Ireland allows unlimited illegal Muslim rapists to come into the country unchecked etc. and throw in some 50s paddie racism about how they are all alcoholics, lazy bastards leaving behind unsupported illegitimate children etc. to tap in on the societal fear and the "better when I was young" categories.

murphaph

Nemesis wrote: »

Will changing/ending the Common Travel Area be used as a tactic to put pressure on Ireland?.

You'd need a commons majority to repeal or amend the Ireland Act 1949 in which Irish citizens are defined as not being aliens in the UK. I doubt very much that lame duck Johnson would find such a majority and the implications for the GFA would be even more horrendous than customs posts!

Peregrinus

Nody wrote: »

I wonder if this could possibly be a UKIP future route; they will need to go more extreme than the Tories obviously so why not go after the paddies? Talk up how Ireland allows unlimited illegal Muslim rapists to come into the country unchecked etc. and throw in some 50s paddie racism about how they are all alcoholics, lazy bastards leaving behind unsupported illegitimate children etc. to tap in on the societal fear and the "better when I was young" categories.

UKIP conceivably might peddle this line, but UKIP are now a fringe extremist party who will never be in government in the UK and will never directly influence government policy.

No party with serious electoral ambitions is likely to push this line. There are up to 6 million people in the UK who are, or are entitled to, Irish citizenship, and those of them who are over 18 are all entitled to vote. Even if you exclude NI, there are more than 4 million such people in Great Britain. The number of votes a party would repel by this stance far exceeds the number it could hope to attract.

Robert McGrath

Surely Gove et al must realise that their threats are likely to increase support from the Irish electorate for the Irish government’s position? Brexiters are fond of invoking the “Blitz spirit” so they’re aware of the phenomenon of a community being unified and galvanised by an external threat - in fact, the Blitz analogy applies more to Ireland’s current position than the UK’s as we’re facing an external threat while any harm to the British is self-inflicted

Peregrinus

Robert McGrath wrote: »

Surely Gove et al must realise that their threats are likely to increase support from the Irish electorate for the Irish government’s position? Brexiters are fond of invoking the “Blitz spirit” so they’re aware of the phenomenon of a community being unified and galvanised by an external threat - in fact, the Blitz analogy applies more to Ireland’s current position than the UK’s as we’re facing an external threat while any harm to the British is self-inflicted

Of course they are aware. Why would this bother them? They do not care whether the Irish government's domestic support increases, decreases or disappears altogether; why would they?

Professor Moriarty

Peregrinus wrote: »

Of course they are aware. Why would this bother them? They do not care whether the Irish government's domestic support increases, decreases or disappears altogether; why would they?

I think the point is that threatening Ireland will galvanise support for the Irish government's position. Given that we are crucial to any decisions made by the EU, public reaction in Ireland to these threats is important to the UK. Of course, this will harden Irish public opinion which in turn may harden the Irish government's position. So, if your plan is to crash out and blame other countries, then this could be seen as an excellent tactic....

prunudo

I wouldn't be so sure that they do understand the optics of London threatening the Irish government therefore the Irish population. The majority of what I've seen from both British government and media coverage of the whole Brexit mess is that they have a deep misunderstanding of anything that happens on this island. They're listening to the Dup as if they speak for NI and believing what they want to.
If Brexit has thought us anything, its that its very hard to argue anything that doesn't involve them leaving the EU no matter the collateral damage.

Robert McGrath

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

I think the point is that threatening Ireland will galvanise support for the Irish government's position. Given that we are crucial to any decisions made by the EU, public reaction in Ireland to these threats is important to the UK. Of course, this will harden Irish public opinion which in turn may harden the Irish government's position. So, if your plan is to crash out and blame other countries, then this could be seen as an excellent tactic....

I suppose it depends on whether underneath all the bluster you think the UK govt want a deal or not. Either way I don’t think the threats achieve anything.

If they do want a deal and the threats of no deal are just the first Tory shots in an election campaign, then threatening Ireland like this seems counter-productive as it hardens the Irish position and makes any deal other than the current WA less likely.

If they don’t want a deal and want to be able to blame the other side, the threats seem unnecessary as there has been no indication of the Irish wavering on the backstop, and threatening to starve us of medicines etc surely hurts any claim that they’re the good guys in these negotiations who shouldn’t carry the blame for their failure (“we did everything we could to get a deal - we even threatened to starve the Irish! That’s how committed to a deal we were”)

lawred2

I also wouldn't think that Pharma in the UK would appreciate the UK government threatening their customer base either

Loafing Oaf

Lucy8080 wrote: »

Jennfer Arcuri interview on i.t.v. right now. I think the papers will have quotes to dream of here. My fav. so far was when she mentioned "bang for a buck".She may/may not be aware of the difference between BRitish and U.S. media. Morgan and Reid giving her all the space she needs to damage herself and bojo.Wait for the book!

Anyone know if it makes any difference to Boris's legal situation if they were actually 'banging'? Presumably the alleged conflict of interest thing would apply much the same if they were genuinely 'just good friends' who did a bit of poledancing in their downtime...

Water John

Well the UK tabloids couldn't resist the story, if they had.

marno21

The UK threatening Ireland would also presumably ruffle a few feathers in the US. The UK don’t appreciate the volume of support for Ireland amongst representatives in the US. I suspect they may have to learn this the hard way, which seems to be their default position on most matters these days

VinLieger

marno21 wrote: »

The UK threatening Ireland would also presumably ruffle a few feathers in the US. The UK don’t appreciate the volume of support for Ireland amongst representatives in the US. I suspect they may have to learn this the hard way, which seems to be their default position on most matters these days

Its really fascinating their absolute disdain and lack of understanding for the kind of soft power Ireland wields in this day and age. And thanks to them were only building up more and more of it in goodwill especially with other EU countries because of how they are trying to screw us over and make us the scapegoat.

murphaph

lawred2 wrote: »

I also wouldn't think that Pharma in the UK would appreciate the UK government threatening their customer base either

Most pharmaceuticals are ultimately made by multinational corporations. They have operations in many countries and can at least partially mitigate against supply chain problems by moving production for non-UK consumption to the EU.

Stop moaning ffs

Nemesis wrote: »

Will changing/ending the Common Travel Area be used as a tactic to put pressure on Ireland?.

Dublin and London agreed the CTA stays in place back in March I think it was?

CelticRambler

prunudo wrote: »

The majority of what I've seen from both British government and media coverage of the whole Brexit mess is that they have a deep misunderstanding of anything that happens on this island.

VinLieger wrote: »

Its really fascinating their absolute disdain and lack of understanding for the kind of soft power Ireland wields in this day and age.

This appears to be the "chickens coming home to roost". Britain has built up (and taught in school) this concept of the plucky little country bravely fighting evil empires throughout history. They have so internalised this aggression that they simply cannot understand that modern democracies resolve their differences and manipulate their adversaries more effectively using soft power than outright confrontation.

When the history books are written, this chapter will undoubtedly show how the Irish won the Brexit war with quiet words in 2016 while the British were still shouting threats and brandishing swords in 2019 (2020, 2021 ... )

It'll be really interesting to see how the country adjusts to permanent power-sharing (in domestic politics) in the coming decade. Will they abandon FPTP and embrace some form of PR; or will they continue to bellow at each other across the aisle of the HoC in the hope of achieving consensus by brute force.

Stop moaning ffs

Robert McGrath wrote: »

Surely Gove et al must realise that their threats are likely to increase support from the Irish electorate for the Irish government’s position? Brexiters are fond of invoking the “Blitz spirit” so they’re aware of the phenomenon of a community being unified and galvanised by an external threat - in fact, the Blitz analogy applies more to Ireland’s current position than the UK’s as we’re facing an external threat while any harm to the British is self-inflicted

Something they don’t realise at all is we get all their media here in Ireland and their papers. We see and hear what they’re saying whereas they don’t get ours. So it’s had that galvanizing effect to a huge degree. Lost count of the amount of times I’ve seen variations of ‘we’ve enough to be angry at the British over but I’ll never forgive them for making me defend Varadkar’. Watching it all the past few years I find it fascinating that no tabloids or media here has anything like the brainwashing capability theres does. They’ve never really tried. Although it could be argued the Indo is definitely trying to the last couple of years.

Sam Russell

marno21 wrote: »

The UK threatening Ireland would also presumably ruffle a few feathers in the US. The UK don’t appreciate the volume of support for Ireland amongst representatives in the US. I suspect they may have to learn this the hard way, which seems to be their default position on most matters these days

The UK claim to have a 'special relationship' with the USA, which may be true, but it could be no more than the relationship between a master and a poodle. They speak of the 'five eyes' security (spy) network as a valuable asset for them (but it is much more valuable to the USA). Most USA politicians work on the three 'Is' - Ireland, Italy and Israel. That is where elections are won or lost.

On the other hand, the Irish Taoseach gets an audience with the President of the USA every year to celebrate St Patrick's day. We have many self proclaimed US Irish politicians in key strategic positions right across the spectrum - some of whom declare 'Do not mess with Ireland' directed at the UK.

I think UK threats against Ireland are counter productive.

CelticRambler

murphaph wrote: »

lawred2 wrote: »

I also wouldn't think that Pharma in the UK would appreciate the UK government threatening their customer base either

Most pharmaceuticals are ultimately made by multinational corporations. They have operations in many countries and can at least partially mitigate against supply chain problems by moving production for non-UK consumption to the EU.

A crash-out Brexit is far more serious for UK Pharma than short term disruption of supply to British dispensaries. In the event of a hard Brexit, all the research, clinical trials and production of medicines in the UK suddenly falls outside of EU norms. Every promising molecule will have to be re-tested and produced at EU approved facilities to be sold to the population of 450 million and at UK labs for sale to the population of 65 million.

Alternatively, these companies can shift their facilities to EU or EU-aligned countries, do the work once and supply the UK on the basis of the UK's unilateral recognition of EU standards.

Recent historical example: Switzerland. When they voted against free movement for EU citizens a few years ago, the EU funding tap for Swiss research was turned off almost instantly and many scientists' contracts (short-term by nature, very much like that research scholar in Scotland) were not renewed.

Ultimately this means that not only will the UK be losing this talent and the jobs that flow from it, but in this field and so many others, they will also end up being a rule-taker with no say in the rule-making, despite all the bluster by the ERG

Retr0gamer

I can tell you right now as some one working in pharma that they all have Brexit projects looking at moving key products out of Britain right now. In fact many are being moved regardless of whether Brexit goes ahead, so just the threat of Brexit has already caused damage. I've been on meetings where it's brought up. These multinationals have no loyalties to a country, maybe GSK, but they can just as easily jump ship and transfer products to other sites or contract labs.

briany

Sam Russell wrote: »

. Most USA politicians work on the three 'Is' - Ireland, Italy and Israel. That is where elections are won or lost.

On the other hand, the Irish Taoseach gets an audience with the President of the USA every year to celebrate St Patrick's day. We have many self proclaimed US Irish politicians in key strategic positions right across the spectrum - some of whom declare 'Do not mess with Ireland' directed at the UK.

I think UK threats against Ireland are counter productive.

The only I that I've heard bandied about in U.S. politics is Israel. That's an I that's at the forefront. On the other hand, if American politicians have an Ireland or Italy policy, then it's not been as well publicised. I'm sure they have policies about improving the lives of Irish or Italian Americans if they're campaigning in the relevant areas, but does this extend to a policy on the old countries?

How much is Brexit and its potential threat to the GFA a matter of ongoing political concern for the Micks of Boston, Chicago, New York, and anywhere else that Irish communities have become established?

GM228

Just a reminder the judgement from the Outer House of the Court of Session is due very soon...

[Deleted User]

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

If UK nukes the CTA that means they would have to put a physical border not just for goods but also for people.

Stopping freedom of movement for Europeans kinda kills the CTA doesn't it.

A European enters Ireland through Dublin hops on a bus to Belfast. Or stays for a week then goes on a flight to London. Won't there need to be checks somewhere?